


Candy Floss

by bravenclawesome



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cute, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Podfic Welcome, Romance, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 50
Words: 28,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1547129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravenclawesome/pseuds/bravenclawesome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The International Statute of Secrecy is under threat. The percentage of the Muggle population who know about magic is continually growing. To prepare the wizarding world for inevitable future challenges, there is only one option – to familiarize wizards with all things Muggle. Which is exactly what Hermione Granger does... with exceedingly hilarious results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cotton Candy/Candy Floss

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic just popped into my head during Chinese because I was bored out of my mind. I think it’s sweet though (excuse the pun). I’ve been having a few things coming into my mind about Ron/Hermione – perhaps they could go ice-skating next, or go swimming at the beach :) any ideas for what other Muggle things Hermione could show Ron?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AVAILABLE IN SPANISH[HERE](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10071413/1/Candy-Floss-A-Drabble-Collection) (translated by Old Brown Shoe)**
> 
> This story just popped into my head during Chinese because I was bored out of my mind. I think it’s sweet though (excuse the pun).

“What kind of Dark Magic is this?”

He stared at the mass of what looked like sunset-coloured clouds on a paper stick. He poked it with a cautious finger, it was fluffy and soft to the touch, and his finger left a small indent in the mass of pink. He sniffed it suspiciously. It smelled surprisingly sweet, like sugar or honey or caramel fudge. “It’s food,” said Hermione simply. “You’re supposed to eat it.” Ron stared at her in disbelief. “How?”

“Like this.” She took the fuzzy ball of pink from him and tore a piece of it off. Her eyes met his, and he gave her a wary glance as she put it into her mouth. Hermione smiled at him as she sucked her fingers clean, her tongue darting out teasingly as she did. “Your turn.”

Ron looked at her and reached out a hand. He picked off a tiny wisp of the cloud. “You have to take more than that to taste it properly,” Hermione demanded. Ron gave her a look, but decided to take more, ripping a larger shred off the soft mass. She smiled at him encouragingly, and he put it into his mouth.

His eyes widened. It had disappeared! All that was left was a sweet layer of sugar coating his tongue. “Where did it go?”

Hermione giggled. “It’s a Muggle sweet called candy floss.” She reached for some more and copied him. “It melts in your mouth. It’s basically spun sugar.”

Ron looked dubious. “Those cheating Muggles,” he said. “All they did was blow up a bit of sugar for profit.” But despite what he had just said, he took a large chunk off the rapidly shrinking ball of fluff and shoved it into his mouth. “Tastes good though,” he mumbled through a thick coating of sugar over his teeth.

Before he knew it, he had finished half of the candy floss. It was addictive, though it didn’t do much to fill his stomach. Hermione watched him with a small smile, taking some candy floss for herself now and then, but mainly enjoying the sensation of watching an adult try candy floss for the first time.

It wasn’t long before the only thing left was the paper stick. It was covered in a little sugar, which Ron promptly offered to Hermione for her to lick off. She accepted the gracious offer and did so, proceeding to throw the paper stick in a bin they passed on the street. Then she kissed him softly, using her tongue to lick off the remaining sugar on his teeth as he did the same to her. They smiled despite themselves as they broke apart and looked at each other.

Ron struggled for something to say, as he always did after they kissed. All that came out of his mouth, however, was a hopeful, “Can we have another one?”


	2. Ice-Skating

His feet were unsteady, his knees shaking as he tried to balance. Hermione held his hands and guided him forwards as she watched him hobble across the ice on overtight shoes with lethally sharp blades underneath them. Ron stumbled and fell into her arms, and she managed not to totter under his weight. She looked behind her and, seeing as there was no one at her back, moved slowly backwards so Ron would step back on his feet again.

“You just have to get used to it,” she said reassuringly, stifling a laugh. Ron’s entire body was shaking so much his hat looked on the verge of falling off. His hat, a woolen mass of robin egg’s blue, slid over his eyes of an almost identical shade, and Ron looked upwards annoyingly, as if he very much wanted to adjust it, but didn’t dare to do so for fear of falling over again. Seeing his desperate expression, Hermione laughed and reached up to move it back in place.

Hermione gripped his hands tightly and led him across the ice. “You’re very quiet, aren’t you?” she said, watching him. She smiled as Ron gave a tight nod. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he was staring at his feet, warily taking step after step, starting when his feet slid over the ice. He was concentrating so much, he didn’t have the energy to talk to her at all. Hermione laughed. “Come to the middle with me,” she said, leading him to the centre of the rink. The other people who were gliding on the ice around them stared at the odd-looking couple, pointing and laughing a little as Ron stumbled with every step he took, but the two of them didn’t look back.

At last they reached the midpoint of the rink. The other skaters circled around them in loops, twirling and skipping on the ice like it was the most natural thing in the world. Ron felt as if everyone was showing off just because he was a beginner. At least he had Hermione to guide him, he thought, so he didn’t feel quite as mortified. Just then, Hermione grinned mischievously and suddenly let go of him, promptly skating off.

“HEY!”

Hermione merely turned and began skating gracefully backwards, mockingly so, grinning at him. Her hair flew out from behind her, messy and untamed, just the way he liked it. “Come on, you can do it!” she called. “Follow me!” She orbited him and skated round the rink, laughing with glee as she watched him hopelessly struggling to move forward. He let out a yell of frustration and lifted his foot just a fraction. He tottered, and waved his arms wildly as he tried not to fall, but arms flailing, Ron lost his balance and fell over face-down. Hermione was still skating, so he had to resort to an embarrassingly self-degrading baby crawl towards her. Hermione decided to take pity on him and skated back to him.

He let out a groan as she pulled him up with surprising strength. “Get up, you useless lump,” she said, laughing. Ron shivered. “I’m freezing,” he complained. “My mittens are _soaked._ ”

“Stop whining,” said Hermione bossily. “I fell over a hundred more times than you did when _I_ first learnt how to skate.”


	3. The Underground

“Where do I put this?" 

Ron was stuck at the revolving ticket machine, trying to find the slot to put the ticket through. When he failed to do so, he pushed the metal bar blocking him from getting to the other side. He growled and attempted to crawl underneath it, but it was rather difficult considering his tall build.

“Stop!” said Hermione, pulling the back of his shirt to restrain him. “The slot’s here, just put it through.” Ron crawled back, blushing furiously as he tried to ignore the other people who were, once again, staring at them. He put the ticket through the machine, but got it the wrong way round. He flipped it and tried again. He jumped in surprise as the ticket slid in of its own accord. “How did it do that?” he said. Hermione shrugged and smiled.

Hermione led him to a platform where they waited for the train. “This is just like the Hogwarts Express,” she explained. “It’s nothing exciting, really.”

The train arrived, screeching to a stop, causing both of them to put their hands over their ears and wince in pain. They boarded the train, Ron almost falling into the gap between the train and the platform (“Mind the gap, Ron, read the signs…”) and sat down inside. The train jerked slightly, then began to move forwards.

They sat and twiddled their thumbs for the next twenty minutes, making idle conversation now and then. It was hot and stuffy inside, as it was summer and there was no air-conditioning. Ron got up to throw a piece of tissue he had used to wipe his face in a nearby bin, but just then the train stopped again and he promptly fell over on his side. A cool female voice announced their destination. Mumbling incoherently as the other people on the train stood up to glare at him, he got up, rubbing his shoulder, and got off the train with Hermione following behind him, shaking her head.

As the made their way towards the exit, they passed a large transparent box which contained rows upon rows of snacks. Stopping to ask what it was, Hermione explained that it was a vending machine as well as how it worked. “Sounds good,” said Ron. He fished out his money pouch and took out a handful of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. Hermione groaned and put her head in her hands.

“Not from round here, are yer?” said a woman who passed them with an amused expression on her slightly wrinkled face. “Never seen coins tha’ big.” Ron flushed again and rummaged through his bag again, while Hermione gave the woman an apologetic glance. They paid the money for a chocolate bar, or rather Hermione did, after Ron made a huge fuss of the different coins and notes (“I wish there weren’t so bloody many different ones, I can’t tell which one’s which!”).

They nibbled at the chocolate, passing the bar between them as each of them took a bite in turns. Hermione took him by the hand and let him out of an exit.


	4. The Cinema

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid for the cinema idea. If you have any other suggestions, please review below and tell me, and if you’re lucky I’ll write it and mention you in the Author’s Note! :)

Hermione seemed to have a pretty clear idea of where she was going, pulling Ron along and telling him to hurry up and stop looking at the signs around them. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked her. She looked back at him. “The cinema,” she replied simply. “We’re going to see a film I just saw last week, but I think you’ll like it.”

Eventually they reached a shopping centre and ascended to the top floor where the cinema was. Ron refused to use the escalators or the lift, saying that he didn’t quite trust electricity just yet, so they had to use the fire escape. They reached the top, panting and puffing as Hermione went to the tuck shop to buy some popcorn and drinks, then gave their tickets to the man at the entrance and he let them in. A woman ushered them to their seats, shining a flashlight onto their tickets and raising her eyebrows at Ron’s astounded expression. “Light just came out of that thing,” he whispered to Hermione excitedly as they settled in the comfortable red plush seats. “I thought Muggles didn’t use magic, how does it do that?” 

Hermione shushed him as the screen lit up, showing various advertisements, each one lamer than the one before it. Then there was an announcement for the film-goers to switch off their mobile phones, and Hermione took hers out and put it on silent. Ron gave her a look and gestured towards the phone. She smiled at him and mouthed, “Another time, perhaps.”

They remained silent throughout the entire film. Ron devoured the entire bag of popcorn barely fifteen minutes in, and finished Hermione’s drink for her as well. She didn’t mind very much; she had never really fancied eating during films. The action film they were seeing wasn’t particularly exciting, but Ron was fascinated by the special effects. As yet another tower blew up on the screen, he nudged Hermione and said, “That must have cost tons!” An elderly couple behind them shushed loudly, and someone else threw their popcorn at him. Ron promptly shut up, and suddenly realised that Hermione was asleep.

He elbowed her again, gently, and she slumped to the side, leaning into his shoulder. He froze and remained perfectly still, afraid to wake her should he move. He continued to stare at the screen, but he wasn’t taking in what was going on. He was acutely aware of Hermione’s presence as she leaned against his arm, breathing softly in and out and muttering in her sleep. He shifted slightly and slowly put his arm around her, rocking slowly. He wasn’t interested in the movie anymore, and it thankfully ended after a quarter of an hour. The lights went up and Ron stroked her hair. When she didn’t wake up, he leaned over and kissed her fully on the lips. She hummed a little and her eyes opened. “Good morning, ‘Mione,” he said softly. She smiled.


	5. Piano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where I come from, if you go into a music store and start playing the pianos, no one really cares unless you’re deliberately trying to destroy it. Hermione and Ron spent about fifteen to twenty minutes playing piano, and in my country that’s perfectly fine. I understand that in other places that may not be the case, so thanks to one or two of my reviewers for pointing that out. I do my best to make my stories somewhat ‘international’.

Ron insisted on visiting the shops after they left the cinema. Hermione led him to the escalators and watched him laugh as he watched the other people step on them like it was a most normal thing to do. 

Hermione pulled him towards one. “Just step on,” she said. He did as she asked, but fell over as soon as his foot landed; he had attempted to go down the Up escalator, and she giggled. “I knew you would fall for that,” she said, casually stepping onto the other one and waving at him as she descended.

Ron gulped; though the Hogwarts staircases moved as well, the steps themselves did not, so this was still new to him. He cautiously touched a step with the end of his foot and instantly put his other next to it before it could drag his feet too far apart. Steadying himself and holding on tightly to the handrail, he walked downwards to Hermione. “This is _weird!_ ” he exclaimed, looking down over the handrail where people were walking about with shopping bags swinging by their sides below them.

They stepped off the escalator, Ron narrowly avoiding clipping his foot on the bit where the stairs disappeared into a fine crack in the ground, and Hermione led him towards the lift. Ron looked around frantically; he didn’t feel very ready to try that just yet. “Can’t we look around?” he pleaded. Hermione looked at him and shrugged. “All right,” she said. “Take your pick.”

Ron turned and saw a large store with a flashing sign above it. _Libretto Music,_ it read in large golden cursive. Inside the glass doors were hundreds of instruments Ron had never seen before. He spotted a piano among them. “Hey!” he said, pointing. “Didn’t you try to teach me how to play something on that thing once?”

Hermione grinned and pushed the doors open, Ron following quickly behind her, his eyes widening at everything he saw. On a stand nearby was a violin and a trumpet encased side-by-side. Guitars hung from the walls in all shapes, sizes and colours. A man in the corner of the shop was trying out a clarinet. Two girls were goggling at the sight of a multitude of woodwind instruments – silver flutes, tiny golden harmonicas and piccolos. Hermione made a beeline for the piano. “I haven’t played in absolutely _ages_ ,” she said happily, and began to play. The gentle tune of _Für Elise_ filled the room. After watching her for a minute or so, Ron moved towards her and sat down beside her on the small piano bench. She budged a little to the side to accommodate him on the seat, but continued to play without rest. “Can you teach me?” said Ron to her.

Hermione’s eyes twinkled and her left hand lifted off the keys to guide his right onto them. “Watch my right hand and follow me,” she explained. “See, this white note here is an E, and that’s a D sharp. You play them twice – ” she used her pinky and her fourth finger to play five notes in rapid succession, interchanging between the two keys she had just explained, “ – then you play a B with this finger, and D here, then C and G. That’s the first line,” she said, and strung the notes together the play the opening line of the piece. Ron followed, screwing up his face in concentration. “E,” he said, looking askance at her as his finger played the key. She nodded. “D…sharp?” he said, playing the next.

After about ten minutes of multiple bouts of swearing and random banging of disjointed chords, Ron eventually got the gist of playing the first few lines of the melody with his right hand. Hermione smiled in approval. “Now you use your left hand to accompany the first,” she said, guiding his other hand onto the keys. “It’s easier, see, it’s just three notes each time, like this…” She stretched her fingers and played an arpeggio, one after another, as Ron watched her fingers in fascination. Hermione sighed inwardly. It was going to be a _very_ long day.


	6. Bowling

They walked into a large hall with a high ceiling. On one side of the hall were a long row of rectangular holes in the wall, each mini-cave containing ten strangely shaped white bottles in triangular formation. The other side had people lining up, holding balls of various colours and sizes and rolling them along the long alleys which ran across the hall.

Ron stared. “This is a sport?” he said disbelievingly. He watched as a person rolled a particularly heavy ball forward and groan as it fell into the gutter, leaving the bottle-shaped objects untouched. Another ball crashed into the midst of the objects and knocked them down one by one. A sign flashed above it. It read _STRIKE!_ in large bold letters. Ron laughed. “This is bizarre!”

Hermione pulled him over to the counter to measure his foot size. They handed a pair of shoes for him to change into, and did the same for Hermione. As soon as Ron had put them on (with difficulty, as his feet were a little larger than the biggest size they had), she waved him over. “Come on,” she said, and led him to a vacant alley. Several balls were already on the side, lined up and ready for them to pick up.

“I chose this sport because it’s relatively easy for starters,” said Hermione. “And anyway, I’m not too good at sports.”

Ron picked up the first ball ball and instantly dropped it back in line. “These are _heavy_!” he exclaimed. “How do you pick them up?” Hermione ambled over and rolled the dark green ball so three finger-sized holes were facing upwards. “You use your fingers and hook the ball like this,” she explained, doing so, “and then you pick it up.” Gritting her teeth, she heaved the ball upwards and used her other hand to support the weight. She carried it over to the alley, staggering a little; it had been a while since she had last played bowling. “I’m not very good at this, mind.”

She swung her arm with the ball backwards, and Ron jumped out of the way in case she accidentally let go of it, but thankfully she managed to hold on. She threw it forwards and released it. The verdant sphere rolled halfway across the alley before veering off to the right and falling into the gutter. Hermione groaned in exasperation. She turned to Ron, who was trying not to smile. “You get the idea.”

Ron nodded and took the next ball in line. It was a black one, and was much heavier, but due to years of Quidditch Keeper training, Ron had become accustomed to carrying heavy things. He copied Hermione’s movements and walked to the alley with confident steps. He narrowed his eyes, as if he were trying to figure out the right angle to throw the ball. Hermione watched him, arms crossed over her chest as she sat in a nearby chair. Then in one quick swing, the ball had gone backwards and forwards again. The momentum threw the ball a good distance before it landed with a bang on the alley. It rolled at top speed and reached the end, proceeding to knock the pins in the centre one by one. They fell like dominoes, the last one tottering slightly before collapsing along with the others.

Ron punched the air and gave a loud _whoop_ of joy. “I did it!” he said. “I did it! At least there’s one Muggle thing I’m not completely useless at!”


	7. Telephone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to dancing.when.the.rain.falls for this idea.

“Are we going to the Ministry?” Ron asked as they stepped into a red telephone booth. The door swung shut and almost hit Hermione hard on the shoulder, but missed. The two of them were squished uncomfortably in the small space there was, pressing up against each other. There was a very awkward pause.

Hermione adjusted herself so she was closest to the row of buttons with numbers on them. She took the phone in one hand and reached for her purse with the other. “No,” she said simply, in answer to Ron’s question. “I originally thought of bringing you to a place to buy a phone, but I can’t trust you with one, and anyway you wouldn’t use it much. We’re calling my parents instead.”

She found her purse and took it out, shaking it a little to check there were coins inside. She opened it with a flick of her fingers and it fell open with an audible _snap._ She took out a few coins and inserted them into the coin slot, then dialed a number. “This is my parents’ telephone number,” she explained. “Everyone has a different one so people don’t get mixed up with each other. But you knew that already, I think. You called Harry once in our second year, didn’t you?" 

Ron nodded. “I don’t think his relatives took it too well,” he said guiltily. He could vaguely remember Uncle Vernon’s frenzied yelling down the phone, denying that there was such a person as Harry Potter living in his home at Privet Drive. He had immediately written to Hermione, telling her not to contact Harry at all, but he thought that he shouldn’t have done that in retrospect. After all, Hermione came from a Muggle family and obviously knew how to use a telephone. He could have saved Harry a lot of boredom and not to mention teenage angst.

Hermione held the phone under her chin and stuffed her closed purse back into her bag. She waited. Then she perked up as someone mumbled with a tinny voice on the other end. “Hello?” she said. Ron stared. Didn’t she have to shout, what with her parents being so far away? Wasn’t that the point of telephone booths being in a small space, so the noise didn’t get out to other people?

“Hi, Mum,” continued Hermione in a normal voice. “It’s me, and Ron’s here too. We’re using a telephone booth because I’m teaching him how to use one. I’ll let him talk to you now.” Giving Ron a look, she gestured him to hold the receiver. Ron held it to his ear, but Hermione sighed and turned it the other way – he had put it to his ear upside down.

“Hello?” said Ron, raising his voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” said a croaky voice on the other end. “No need to shout, my dear, I’m not deaf.”

“How can you hear me from so far away?” Ron asked curiously. Hermione laughed silently as she watched him holding the receiver awkwardly. She looked through the dusty glass case holding them inside, and saw a man impatiently tapping his foot as he waited his turn to use the telephone.

“Electricity wires,” said Mrs. Granger, and Ron could almost hear her smiling, if that was possible. “Don’t worry, my boy, you’ll get the hang of it.”


	8. Gallery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to dancer4813 for this idea – I especially liked the line she suggested, “Muggles get paid for making stuff like this?” If you have anything to contribute, may it be a review or another suggestion for other things Ron and Hermione could do, please do so in the review box below, and I might pick the activity and mention you in the Author’s Note! Happy reading!

After Ron had handed the receiver back to Hermione, she told her mother her plans for the day. They were to travel to her house and meet up for lunch, then they would go to visit an art gallery in Muggle London when afternoon arrived. So they did.

They Apparated to the small cottage and landed perfectly outside the gate; Hermione had managed to hone her sense of exactly where to appear perfectly, so they didn’t land in her parents’ prized rosebushes. They had tea and cakes with her family quietly, making small talk and idle chat every now and then. Ron was too busy enjoying the food, gorging himself with various scones buttered and covered in strawberry jam.

They set off for the art gallery, walking instead of Apparating because her parents were frail and were not used to trying new things, and besides, the gallery wasn’t so far away. It was a temporary one that had opened recently, and was going to stay for a month or two before moving to another country. It was a collection of famous artworks by artists who were long gone, and was open to the public for free.

Hermione’s parents were great fans of art, and were wandering about on their own, murmuring at the minor details of each piece as they admired them in obvious delight. Hermione watched them meander off into a nearby corridor, making a mental note to find them later. She took Ron by the arm and linked it with hers, leading him to another corridor covered in paintings.

“Muggles get _paid_ for making stuff like this?” said Ron in wonder, staring at the multitude of framed art around him. They were strangely still, painted in oil on canvas, some bright and colourful, showing flower-filled meadows and blue skies, others dark and sinister, depicting scenes of war and violence. It was, on the whole, rather fascinating, but Ron wished they would move, at least. The stillness of the pictures unnerved him. He went up to one frame where a woman stood in a valley of sunflowers. She was staring serenely into the distance, and Ron was strongly reminded of Luna Lovegood all of a sudden. He poked the canvas and stuck out his tongue in disgust as the oil came off on his fingers. “Why won’t it move?” he whined, poking it again.

Hermione instantly ran over and jerked his arm away from the painting, just as he was about to touch it once more. “You’re not supposed to _touch_ them!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper. “Look at the signs, for Merlin’s sake!” She pointed at the barrier surrounding the frame. It had obviously not done its job, seeing as Ron had stepped clear past it. “They’re not wizarding pictures, so they obviously don’t move,” said Hermione urgently. Ron blushed and pretended to look at the painting with a new intensity, as if it was a force field automatically drawing his gaze towards it.


	9. Bicycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had several suggestions that I should write something about Hermione teaching Ron how to use a computer. Since that and the Internet is a HUGE topic, I think I’ll split this into several parts. It’ll come much, much later, though – I’ve got several chapters already written before that one.
> 
> I had originally thought to put the Internet stuff in another story entirely, but then I thought it sounded rather (excuse the pun) disconnected. Thanks to hpfreakofalltime16 for coming up with the idea of the computer FIRST, and keep reading and reviewing, because I appreciate every single one of you guys!
> 
> If you have any other ideas for what Hermione and Ron could do, please review below and state your suggestion, and I might just write it :)

“It’s not that difficult, Ron. You play Quidditch, after all.”

He was staring nervously at the strange contraption that lay before him. The thing had two large wheels and a handle at the front, with a thin triangular seat next to it and another, smaller metal one behind it. “What is that?” he said warily, walking around the unusually shaped object as he observed it.

“It’s a bicycle.”

“A bye-sick-what?”

“ _Bicycle,_ ” repeated Hermione, sounding exasperated and annoyed at the same time. “You ride it. All you need is balance and confidence, which I’m sure you have a lot of. You’ve had tons of experience on a broom, this shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Where do I sit?” he asked, picking it up by the wheel so it was hanging upside down. Hermione laughed and rolled her eyes, righting it so the two wheels stayed firmly on the ground. “You sit here,” she said, pointing at the triangular leather seat. “And I’ll be behind you pushing it so you don’t fall on your first try.” She then pointed at the handlebars. “You can hold onto that, and if you want me to stop, then ring that bell like this.” She reached out and used a finger to flick a small lever on the edge of the bar, which caused a tinny ringing sound to emit from a roundish object the lever was sticking out of on the handlebars. “It’s easy,” she assured him. He didn’t look very convinced.

Ron sat cautiously on the seat, as if he were afraid it would collapse any moment. He held onto the handlebars and steadied his breathing. He gulped. “Can we go slowly?”

Hermione only smiled in response and began to push the metal seat so they inched forward. “You’d have to go faster than that if you want to balance,” she said. “And you’re dragging your feet. Put them here on the pedals, so you can propel yourself forward.” Ron suddenly noticed a pair of wedge-shaped things poking out from both sides of the thing, and put his feet on them. He found he could push them quite easily, one foot after another, and had soon established a steady rhythm, moving forwards faster and faster until Hermione was just keeping up behind him.

“See?” she panted, running and talking simultaneously. “Let’s see how you’ll manage if I do… _this._ ” She let go of him entirely.

He continued to move forwards, keeping his pace steady as his legs moved up and down in a circular motion. “Hey, I can do it!” he shouted in glee. He looked back at Hermione to see if she was watching, and indeed she was. He grinned at her, but just then, her eyes widened and she was shouting, “Turn right! Turn right!”

“ _How?_ ” he yelled; he hadn’t learnt how to steer just yet, Hermione had obviously not expected him to get to this stage. He turned forwards again and saw a lamppost just up ahead. “Help!” he yelled, but there was nothing he could do. He could fall off, but he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to break the fall, and anyway, his feet seemed to be stuck to the pedals for all the fear he was currently experiencing. He let out a cry as the lamppost came closer.

 


	10. Airplane/Aeroplane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid for this idea.

“My dad had always wondered what made airplanes stay up,” said Ron nervously, drumming his fingers on the armrest as he sat in an extremely uncomfortable seat which was covered in cloth that made his hair stand up with static electricity. Hermione was next to him, looking decidedly calmer with her arms folded in her lap. Now and then she would lift a hand to sip at her drink in front of her on a small portable tray. 

“There isn’t much to it, really,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s a bunch of forces working together, like lift and gravity pulling at each other, for example. It also helps that the airplane itself is streamlined.” Ron pretended that he understood and nodded half-heartedly, not comprehending a word of what she had just said.

A crackling sound came from above them and Ron jumped in surprise. A cool voice announced the name of the captain, who then proceeded to introduce himself and ask them to turn off their phones (which Hermione did, without further ado) and warnings about smoking during the flight. “We’ll be leaving for Venice in fifteen minutes.”

Ron let out a small whimper, and Hermione looked at him. He was staring out of the window, tapping an agitated tattoo on the double-layered glass. She decided to take out a book she had brought for the flight, and proceeded to completely absorb herself into it. 

After a while, the plane began to rumble. Ron gripped Hermione’s arm but lessened the force when she winced, dropping the book on the floor.

The plane moved forward. The humming around them got louder. Hermione tried to console Ron a little. “We won’t _crash,_ ” she said. “A pilot – that’s the person steering the plane – has to be extremely experienced to be able to do this. It’s a chance in a billion.”

“It’s still a chance,” he said in a strangled whisper. He was more scared than he had ever been, even more than when he saw spiders, and that was saying something. He looked out of the window again, craning his neck as the green fields and trees fell behind them, leaving a long runway ahead made of bitumen, cement and asphalt. “Goodbye, London.”

Then there was a loud whirring as the plane kicked into action, and it sped along the track at increasing speed. Outside, the flaps on the wings wavered and moved into takeoff formation. They began to vibrate rapidly as the plane went even faster and rose off the ground, flying higher and higher…

The closer to the heavens the got, the more Ron hyperventilated. They zoomed upwards to the clouds, and in one short burst that clouded the windows with vapour, they had shot through the clouds entirely. It was here that the plane began to steady itself after its smooth ascent, moving forward again, except high up in the air instead of on the ground. Ron hadn’t noticed that his eyes were squeezed shut, and opened them again to look outside. He gasped. 

It had been late afternoon when they had boarded the plane, and it was now approaching sunset. The clouds around them were tinged with pink and purple hues, looking remarkably like the Muggle sweet Hermione had let him try just a few weeks ago; what was it called, candy fleece? He looked over at Hermione, meaning to gesture towards the view so she could look too, but she was too engrossed in her book to look like she would appreciate it. He let it go and checked Hermione’s watch on her wrist. They still had a little more than two hours to go.


	11. Pizza

“I love it when you let me try food." 

Said food was in front of him on a large, circular plate. According to Hermione, it was one of the many delicacies of Italy, where they were currently enjoying a holiday. It was flat and round, with a crusty edge covered in sprinklings of flour, smothered with various toppings – olives, salami, tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms and meatballs. It looked extremely appetizing and not completely bizarre like the candy floss (Hermione had corrected him eventually, but not after laughing at his word ‘candy fleece’) they had eaten a while ago. He very much wanted to get started, but first he had to learn its name.

“What’s it called again?” Ron glanced at Hermione who was next to him and nudged her. She was busy trying to fit a small card into her cell phone. Apparently, if she used that card instead of her old one, she wouldn’t have to call her parents for a hefty sum. She had her tongue stuck out as she tried to fit the card in, squinting a little for better focus. Finally, the tiny object slid inside with a _click_ and she looked up. “Pizza,” she said. “P-I-Z-Z-A.” She slid the back of her phone back onto it, covering the miniscule card protectively.

Ron nodded in understanding and looked back at the large thing that was much bigger than any of his mother’s pancakes sitting in front of him, waiting to be eaten. A little steam rose off it in tantalizing wisps, beckoning him to take a bite. He licked his lips. He picked up his fork and tried to rip off a piece, but ended up getting tomato sauce all over the table. He hastily tried to clean it up with the napkin next to him, but realised the paper was much too thin to soak anything up. He took a few more napkins from a glass on the table and mopped it up, flushing a little.

Hermione put down her phone, checking that no pickpockets were nearby to steal it from her, and sighed at the sight. She took a large knife that the waiter had put on the edge of their table and cut the pizza into eight large slices. “You eat it with your hands,” she explained, taking one of the smaller slices gingerly with one hand and supporting it with the other after putting down the knife. “And then…” She lifted it to her mouth and ate a large chunk of it, chewing with her mouth closed, looking at Ron all the while. He copied her. It was a little messier than her attempt, but the pizza got into his mouth eventually. 

As soon as he began to taste the food, he began nodding in appreciation. “Ish good,” he mumbled through a mass of tomatoes and olives. She giggled. “Swallow your food,” she teased mockingly. “It’s only polite.” She kissed him on the cheek, then handed him a glass of water to help soften the food, and he obliged, chewing much louder than she had. Hermione took a second bite out of hers. “We’ll get ice cream after this,” she said in delight. “Italian ice cream is the _best_.”


	12. Postcard

“0.86 Euros, _per favore_.”

Hermione fished out her purse and paid the money before making her way back to Ron, who was leaning against the wall on his side. She smiled and held up a small, flat card, which had a pretty picture of the Bridge of Sighs on one side, and a multitude of lines next to a small square in the corner on the other.

She found a table nearby and placed the card onto it, the picture face down, and took out a pen from her bag after reaching into it and rummaging around for several seconds, Ron looking on all the while. “We’re writing to my parents,” she said for clarification, as Ron obviously didn’t know what she was up to.

“But I thought you used letters like us,” said Ron.

“We do, but we also have these things – ” Hermione picked the card up again and waved it in his face so his head jerked backwards in surprise, “ – called _postcards._ Muggles use them when they’re on holiday as a short note to their family about how things have been going so far.” She put the card down again. “This is my parents’ address,” she explained, printing a few numbers and words onto the right side in large block letters. “You have to write it neatly so the postman can read it.”

She handed the pen to him, and he took it after a surprised look at her. “Write something,” she said, pointing at the small card. “Right there, on the lines, but don’t write too much because there isn’t enough space. I still need to put a stamp on.”

Ron nodded and Hermione moved aside so he could get a better look at the postcard. He leaned forward – the table was a little too short for his height – and began to write in his slightly less legible manuscript.

_Dear Mr and Mrs. Granger,_

_I hope you’re doing well. We’re in Venice right now and so far it’s been a blast! The flight was a bit terrifying, but other than that we’ve have a great time. I’ve already tried different food like peetza and ice cream (which is much better than what we get in London), and I’m looking forward to more!_

_See you soon_

_Ron_

“There,” he said, pushing the card towards her. She read it through and made a small note with the pen. Ron looked to see what she had done – she had crossed out ‘peetza’ and rewritten it with the correct spelling. She had also signed her name underneath in elegant cursive. “I’ll go and get a stamp now,” she said, and wandered back to the counter. Ron sat on the table and waited. He tried to swing his legs, but the table was much too low. She came back two minutes later with a tiny rectangular piece of paper between her fingers. She licked it (Ron made a noise of disgust) and stuck it onto the small box on the postcard. Ron squinted to read the text on the stamp – it said “Venice, Italy” and had a small price next to it. “There.” 

“Don’t you have to put more than that?” he asked. Hermione shook her head, looking nonplussed. “So that’s enough then, just one stamp?” he said, astounded. She nodded this time, and he groaned. “My mother wrote a letter to Harry in my fourth year to invite him to the Quidditch World Cup with us,” he said. “We thought we had to cover the entire envelope in stamps.”

Hermione fought back a laugh, and Ron smiled involuntarily. “Now you have to mail it, right there. Just slide it through the flap and someone will pick it up tomorrow.” She gestured towards a mailbox a few feet away. Ron ambled over with the postcard and slid it inside, peering through the flap to make sure it had gone through.

“Okay, let’s go.”


	13. Rollercoaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people have been requesting for a rollercoaster ride or something to do with a theme park, and I’m sorry I can’t be bothered to list everyone out because there were SO MANY OF YOU! I am so grateful to every single one of you for all the critiques and praise, even if they were three words long :)

After spending a week in Venice, Ron and Hermione had returned safely back to London. Ron realised that he had gotten somewhat used to planes, but it still didn’t stop him from rushing off to the bathroom every fifteen minutes and banging loudly on the doors when they were occupied, shouting, “Open up, it’s a bloody emergency!”

After spending a few lazy days recovering from the long flight, Hermione decided that their next course of action was to go to a theme park. Conveniently enough, a carnival had opened nearby, welcoming the approaching summer, with all the usual things like Ferris wheels, games and lots of food (the latter of which Ron was greatly interested in). Hermione and Ron spent the day wandering around the place, eating food and playing games.

It was late evening when Hermione announced, “I think you’re up for a challenge.”

Ron gave her a strange look (he was finishing his sixth helping of candy floss), but before he could say anything, she led him to a curious structure which looked like the Hogwarts train tracks had been lifted out of the ground and warped into curious shapes up in the sky. “Bloody hell,” he said nervously, “we’re not going on that, are we?”

Hermione didn’t answer, but smiled mysteriously. A man at the gate let them enter, and after climbing multiple steps, they were ushered into a line of carriages in crocodile formation with other Muggles. Ron looked around; they were rather high up in the air, and the people below were like miniscule insects wandering about the colourful carnival. Hermione looked rather excited about something as she twiddled her thumbs in the front-row carriage next to him. “Any minute now,” she said. Ron twitched.

Ron gave a surprised shout as they suddenly began to move. The carriage was fast, turning this way and that at shocking speed alacrity. To Ron, it was almost like Gringotts, except they weren’t underground.

“This is nice!” shouted Ron into Hermione’s ear over the howling wind around them. “Just you wait,” she yelled back, giving him the same annoyingly sly look.

They began to climb a steep slope, and Hermione and Ron had to lean forwards slightly to prevent their heads from flopping backwards to the people behind them. “This is the best bit,” Hermione said suddenly, biting her lip to suppress her grin. 

The train stopped.

Ron wondered for a moment whether the ride had stopped working, until he looked down. He gave a gasp and clutched the bar which kept him in his seat.

There was another tantalizing pause before they dropped.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Ron’s stomach felt like it was fighting its way to escape out of his mouth. A heady euphoria was filling his head, his eyes wide as they dropped. Hermione was screaming too, but she didn’t look scared at all; she grabbed his hand as the ground and the people came closer and closer in a sudden shock of clarity.

Then it was over and they were on a horizontal track once again, the transition being a perfect right angle which made Ron jerk backwards in fright. They crashed headlong into a river, which whooshed all around them as they were sprayed with large, fat droplets of water. By the time the train had stopped, everyone was soaked, but laughing. Dusk had come, and everyone stumbled out, dripping down to their socks. Ron’s hair was plastered to the sides of his face. He noticed that Hermione’s hair looked surprisingly neater now that water had weighed down the frizziness.

“It’s five past seven!” exclaimed Hermione, brushing the water off her watch. “The fireworks have begun!” She took his hand and pulled him out of the doorway, but Ron had another idea. As colourful fireworks worthy of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes exploded behind them, he pulled her back into his arms for a long, satisfying, and very wet kiss.


	14. Coca Cola/Coke

Ron gasped and choked. The liquid was fizzing all over his mouth; not expecting this effect, he had taken a larger sip than he could handle.It scalded his tongue and bubbled over his teeth, sloshing around in his mouth. He regretted it now.

He spat out what was in his mouth and coughed again, the burning sensation still scalding his tongue and reaching his nostrils. The brown, bubble-filled liquid landed on the floor with a _splat_ as he attempted to wipe his watering eyes and nose _._

“ _Ron,_ ” said Hermione, rolling her eyes and laughing. “You aren’t supposed to take that much at once.” She took the bottle and sipped in a very ladylike fashion, pursing her lips and smiling at him.

“I know that _now,_ ” said Ron guiltily. He licked the inside of his mouth with his tongue and winced a little. It burned still. “Why does it do that?”

Hermione took a larger swig and grimaced, but was able to hold it down unlike Ron. “I don’t like it very much myself, so I don’t blame you,” she said, “but it’s called a soft drink.”

“What?”

“It’s added to the drink to make it fizzy. Muggles enjoy it.”

The two of them were still at the carnival, surrounded by a large line of people who were lining up to buy food, most of them wandering off with hot dogs and bottles of Coke. Hermione had only bought a bottle of the soft drink for the two of them to share, and had purposely not described it to Ron, wanting to see his reaction, which turned out to be just as hilarious as she had expected

“This is what you call Coke?” asked Ron, closing the bottle and shaking it. Hermione pressed her lips together to stop herself from telling Ron that one of the worst things you could do with a Coke bottle was to shake it while closed. She succeeded, and gave Ron a cryptic smile. “Take another sip, but make sure you drink less this time,” she suggested. Ron obliged.

She watched as he opened the bottle again, and with a loud _whoosh,_ a jet of foamy brown liquid was shooting out of the bottle and hitting him straight in the face. She laughed as he yelled in surprise.

“Hey, my shirt only dried fifteen minutes ago!” said Ron loudly, who was soaked once again. His orange Chudley Cannons shirt (which drew a lot of stares) was stained brown right in the centre. Hermione, standing a good few feet away, was untouched. Several passer-bys, who had been splattered by Ron’s accidental soda attack, gave the couple dirty looks.

“Bloody teenagers,” mumbled a croaky old woman who had a knobbly walking stick in one hand and a large, heavy-looking bag in the other. People around her murmured in assent.

“I’m _twenty-two,_ for Merlin’s sake!” yelled Ron. “Do I look that young to you?” The woman merely glared at him and hobbled off.

Hermione walked to the end of the line and waited for her turn to get another bottle. After all, she hadn’t tried Coke in a long time, and anyway it wasn’t that expensive. She hadn’t expected Ron to finish his Coke so quickly – or rather, spill it.

“Another Coke, please.”


	15. Driving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, if you find anything interesting in your life that you think Ron and Hermione should try, please review in the box below! If I like your suggestion, it’ll be put in the queue with the other stuff I’ve come up with. For those who have already suggested ideas, don’t forget to follow the story to find out when your idea comes up!

“Before you get any ideas,” said Hermione with a warning look, “this isn’t anything like the Ford Anglia your father had. It’s much more complicated and Muggle cars don’t fly… but I expect you knew that already.”

The two of them were behind Hermione’s house, where there was a small, unoccupied road they could drive on. Ron had originally suggested he get a driver’s license, but Hermione insisted that he didn’t need one and that Apparition was much simpler anyway. Instead, here they were in Hermione’s car, which had been a gift to her from her parents after her graduation from Hogwarts. It was still rather new, since it hadn’t been used very much by its owner.

“Normally, driving takes several months to learn, but I don’t think I have the patience or the skill to do that,” said Hermione. “I think I’ll just show you how to drive in a straight line for now.” She leaned over into his shoulder and pointed at his feet. “That’s the accelerator, and that’s the brake. You use your right foot to push down on either one of them, but never both at the same time. The harder you push on the accelerator, the faster you go, but just press lightly for now, because I don’t trust you to go too fast.”

She proceeded to instruct him further with the various levers and buttons in the car, and Ron was getting steadily confused as the new and unfamiliar terms swam around in his head. When Hermione was done, she handed him the car keys. “First, you turn the ignition on,” she instructed. “Put the key in the lock right there, next to the wheel, and turn it clockwise until the engine ignites.”

Ron did as he was told and gave a jolt in his seat as the engine came to life. The car began to vibrate, and Ron accidentally hit his head on the ceiling. He placed his hands on the steering wheel with a little more force than was necessary. A loud _honk_ sounded and Ron jumped again, letting go of the wheel like it was red-hot iron.

Hermione clapped her palm to her forehead and made a noise that sounded halfway between a groan and a laugh. “That was the horn,” she explained. “You only use that if you’re in trouble or want other cars to get out of the way.” She took his hand and placed it gently on the steering wheel. “Try again,” she said, smiling. “Not too hard.”

Ron bit his lip nervously and complied. He looked down and began to press his foot lightly against the accelerator, but before he could move forward, he was stopped by a loud shriek from Hermione.

“Oh _Merlin,_ I almost forgot!” She opened the door and hopped out of the car, Ron watching her with surprise. She took a few steps until she was in front of the car and began to wave her wand, muttering incantations for Cushioning Charms and other protective spells. She stepped back into the car and closed the door with a _slam._ “I should have thought of that earlier,” she said. “Can’t risk crashing.” She nodded at him. “Now go.”

Ron tried again. The car began to inch forwards, little by little. “Good,” muttered Hermione, and Ron thought for a moment that she actually sounded surprised. “Just don’t go any faster.”

It was an excruciatingly slow journey to the end of the path, and when the finally reached it ten minutes later, Hermione signaled for Ron to push on the brakes. She turned the ignition off and the couple gave a collective sigh. “You’re right,” said Ron, wiping the sweat that had formed on his brow, “maybe I should just stick to Apparition.” He noticed that his hands were gripping the wheel so tightly, he had to make some effort to unclench them. “How do you Muggles even control this bloody thing on the road?”


	16. Curry

The room was dark, except from the candles that flickered by the tables, occasionally emitting puffs of smoke that dissipated into the evening air. The air had a tangy, exotic flavour to it, unlike anything Ron had ever smelt before. There was a curious statue in the corner, of a man who had his palms together and his eyes closed, dressed in flowing robes and painted in gold. Altogether, it was a very curious place.

Hermione led him to a table and sat down, taking a menu and reading it quickly. “I’ve been here loads of times with my parents,” she said quickly, then, “Waiter, please!”

She ordered rice, noodles, and other foods that Ron was generally accustomed to, since his mother cooked a wide variety of cuisines, but she also requested something he didn’t quite catch, but it either began with a C or a K. He gave her a questioning look, but she only smiled and winked at him. “You’ll like it, I promise,” she said mysteriously, as the waiter walked off with the slip of paper into the kitchens.

The food came after about ten minutes, and Ron by this time was drumming his fingers impatiently on the table, giving the waiter a mild glare as he finally put down the food. Ron was familiar with most of the food, such as rice and noodles or bread, but then the waiter set down a large bowl of yellowish gloop that didn’t look very appetizing. What made it worse was the fact that there were lumpy bits in it, and Ron had never liked lumpy bits in any of his food, no matter how good it tasted.

Hermione took a spoon and dipped it into the sloppy mass, dumping a large quantity of it onto her rice. “They’re only _potatoes_ ,” she said to Ron, knowing that the only reason he wasn’t trying the food was because of the chunky blocks. He was still looking very skeptical. “This is called curry,” she said. “Take a spoonful and try it.” She snatched his spoon from his tablemat and dunked it into the bowl.

Ron fished it back out and looked at the now-yellow spoon suspiciously. It smelled good, he would give it that. And now that it was completely devoid of lumpy bits, it actually looked like it would taste rather delicious…

He shoved the entire spoon into his mouth. Hermione smiled approvingly at him, but her gaze looked as if she was waiting for something to happen. And indeed, something did. The curry tasted tangy and salty, with hints of various exotic herbs, but after a few seconds, it began to burn with a vicious ferocity. It was unlike anything he had ever tasted before, and unlike the other Muggle food he had tried before, he didn’t like this very much at all.

Ron had never been particularly accustomed to the ways of etiquette, but he knew enough to know that he wasn’t supposed to spit out food he didn’t like. His eyes watered as he attempted to swallow the mouthful of curry, but it was too much. But the spiciness was too overwhelming, and he had the distinct impression that if he didn’t remove the curry from his tongue some way or another, he was going to explode. So he held his breath and swallowed it with a gulp, shivering as the food went down into his stomach, leaving a burning sensation all the way down.

Hermione was trying and failing to stifle her laugh as Ron blinked back tears. He opened his mouth and gasped.

“WATER!”


	17. Computer - Part 1/7

“This,” said Hermione proudly, “is one of the Muggle world’s greatest inventions.”

The invention she was speaking of looked rather unremarkable. It resembled a book, but without its pages. One side was covered with curious-looking buttons arranged in rows, some larger than others on the edges. On the other side was a bright screen. It was lustrous and shiny on the outside as well, and a small roundish object was connected to it by a thin, winding cord. On the whole, Ron couldn’t fathom how this was supposed to be so amazing.

“This is my laptop,” said Hermione, sitting down at the table where the thing was placed. She took the roundish thing and began to move it about, clicking occasionally. Ron came closer and noticed that a small arrow was racing about the screen. After some close and careful observation, he realised that the roundish object was _controlling_ the arrow’s actions. Was the thing a wand in disguise, Imperiusing the arrow to do its bidding?

“The mouse,” said Hermione, “controls the cursor so you can open things on the screen.” Ron looked at the ‘mouse’ and decided it did not look anything like Scabbers at all. “I could go on the Internet, for example.”

“What’s that?” said Ron automatically. He had heard the word ‘internet’ several times before, but had never grasped the meaning of it. Harry had tried to explain to him once, but the idea was too confusing, too broad a subject to discuss, and anyway, Harry had never been a very good teacher about the Muggle world, unlike Hermione.

“It’s like a global network,” said Hermione. “It contains loads of information about anything you want. When I was little, if I ever needed to find out about anything, I only had to search it up and it would give me what I needed in minutes. Sometimes I go shopping online, too.” Ron had to agree that it sounded brilliant. If they had the Internet at Hogwarts, he would have been able to finish his homework essays in much less time.

“You can do anything, basically,” said Hermione, getting more excited by the minute. “Mostly I use Facebook sometimes to connect with people I know in real life. Look!” Her hands flew over the buttons, and as Ron watched, a window came up onto the screen, showing a bizarre collection of words, photos and faces. There was a blue bar across the top with the word “facebook” on the left and Hermione’s name on the right with a tiny photo of her grinning face next to it. As for the rest…Ron didn’t know where to look, it was too much all at once.

Hermione continued to ramble on. “For example, if someone I knew had an account, I would be able to connect with them and talk to them on the Internet,” she said. “It’s completely free.” She clicked on her name on the top right corner, and the words immediately rearranged themselves to form another page. It was fascinating to watch.

“I could go on forever,” said Hermione, “but I think I’ll start small like I have always done.” She smiled at him as her hand went to the mouse again, clicking a small red X he hadn’t noticed before. The page abruptly vanished. “Let’s start by showing you how to type.”


	18. Computer - Part 2/7 - Typing

Hermione pulled up another chair for Ron to sit next to her at her computer. Looking back at the screen, she gasped suddenly. “Oh no, where’s my charger?”

Nonplussed, Ron watched as she reached under the table and emerged with another cord, connecting it to a small indentation in the side which he hadn’t noticed before. The screen flashed for a moment, then brightened. A miniscule lightning bolt had now appeared on the top right corner of the screen, bearing a shocking resemblance to Harry’s scar.

“My computer runs on electricity,” explained Hermione. “But after a while it runs out of power, so I have to charge its batteries again.”

Ron tried to act like he had understood.

Hermione opened a window and typed a website into it. The page loaded quickly, filled with colourful images and words. She clicked on one titled “For Beginners”. A list appeared, but the words were underlined and in purple. Ron observed in fascination how the little arrow on the screen would change momentarily to a finger when Hermione placed it over the words and clicked.

“We’ll start with these letters – ” she pointed towards the middle row of the keyboard; Ron read A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, L and a semicolon. “See? Just put your thumbs on the spacebar here, and the others on the rest of the keys.” Ron placed them on the keyboard as instructed, but pressed too hard – the long rectangular bar under his thumb sank downwards and he jumped, as if the computer had given him an electric shock. Hermione laughed. “You’ll have to be pressing down anyway, later on.”

She took the mouse and pressed a large button that said “Start”. The words dissolved and new ones appeared, a series of words that made no sense together, like ‘salad’, ‘alfalfa’, ‘flag’ and ‘fall’. “Your objective is to type these words,” she said simply. “With practice you’ll get used to the idea of which key to press, and the spacebar is for when you put a space between words.”

They got to work. Hermione had to suppress her laughs and groans multiple times when Ron pressed the wrong key. It seemed to be difficult for him to remember the use of the space bar, which caused much confusion when he wanted to type the next word. He quickly discovered that his fingers were not very dexterous, and as they fumbled around clumsily for the right button, the computer beeped loudly every time he accidentally pressed the wrong key. Gradually, though, he got better.

About an hour of restless typing later, he had mastered his left hand and most of his right, save for the perpetual mix-up between which key was L and which was the semicolon. He moved on to the next exercise which taught him the keys he was able to press with his left hand, then the right, then the neat row of numbers positioned across the top (“At least they’re not jumbled up like the letters are!” said Ron in delight, after mastering the exercise with surprising ease). After a while, his eyes were watering with the strain of staring at a bright screen from the same distance, and Hermione decided it was the optimum time to take a break. “You’ve done a lot better than I thought you would,” she said in a congratulatory tone. Ron tried to look as modest as he could while blushing furiously. “You’ll see what exciting things I’ve got in store for you tomorrow!”


	19. Computer - Part 3/7 - Google

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to soccerisawesome19 for suggesting the idea that Ron misreads Google as ‘Goggle’!

“Today will be much easier,” said Hermione as Ron sat down beside her at the computer. “This is one of my favourite websites.” She opened a window on her computer and typed in the address. A very simple page loaded, blank and white save for the one colourful word in the centre, ‘Google’. There was a rectangular box below it and another, smaller, lower down, with the word ‘Search’.

“Goggle?” he misread. “I thought you didn’t like swimming!”

“I don’t,” said Hermione with a toss of her hair, which was more bushy than usual today. “And it’s _Google_ , make the ‘ooh’ nice and long.”

“This is like Wingardium Leviosa all over again,” said Ron, rolling his eyes. He wished for a moment that his first-year self could see the two of them now. At the time, he never would have dreamed that he would love the most obnoxiously annoying person he had ever had the fortune (or misfortune) to meet. But go figure – things changed.

“Oh, I remember that _so_ well,” said Hermione with a grin. “You’re saying it wrong,” she continued in a high, bossily girlish voice. “It’s Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the ‘gar’ nice and long.”

Ron chuckled and kissed her. “Really, Hermione, you’re amazing,” he said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” She blushed and tousled his hair the way he liked it, starting from the fringe upwards in an arc to the back of his head, then kissed him back.

“Anyway,” she said, after a while, “Google is a search engine, which means if you want any information about anything you like, you can look it up.”

“Even Quidditch?” asked Ron automatically.

“I don’t know about that, but due to the Statute of Secrecy, I’m ninety-percent sure they don’t,” said Hermione with an amused expression on her face, as if she knew he was going to ask all along. “Oh, and ‘percent’ is a maths term,” she added, as Ron gave her a confused look. “Maybe I’ll show you one day.”

She gestured for him to type into the search box and he obliged. When he was done, Hermione showed him the ‘enter’ button which was just two buttons away from the semicolon. As soon as he nudged it with his right pinkie, the page loaded almost instantly with pages of results. Ron noticed a ‘Harry Potter Wiki’ result, a ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’, and multiple websites with similar titles, all about Quidditch. “This is _bizarre_!” he exclaimed in delight.

“They’ve got tons of stuff about everything,” said Hermione. “Look, you can Google any name, and any website with that name on it just pops up. Ooh, look!” she exclaimed suddenly. “This one’s got my name on!” She pointed towards the screen, taking care not to let her finger actually touch it for fear of dirtying it. Apart from typing, Hermione had also explained the basic rules of how to use a computer, and not touching the screen was one of them.

For the next few minutes, they opened multiple websites and read the contents, Ron gasping every so often at the various designs of the pages. After a while, they got back to the original Google site, but this time Ron noticed something else – a black bar that filled the top of the screen with little words and buttons on them. What interested him the most, though, was a word he had never seen before in his life, ‘Gmail’.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“Ah,” said Hermione, obviously pleased. “I was hoping we would come to that.”


	20. Computer - Part 4/7 - Email

“This is how Muggles communicate nowadays,” said Hermione. “It’s faster than sending a letter, faster than owl post, and pretty much any other communication method you can think of. It’s called email, but Google calls it Gmail because it’s, well, Google.”

“How do you use it?”

“I’m getting to that. First I’ll make you an account. It doesn’t cost anything, and it’ll be much easier to explain once we get started.” Ron waited for about five minutes while he watched Hermione do all the work. She put his name and details onto a page with multiple boxes for her to fill in, and picked a suitable username for him to remember. She pressed a button and, just like magic, the page loaded.

“This is your new email account,” she said proudly. “This is your inbox, it’s the place where you receive messages. You can also write messages to other people with that button – ” the cursor momentarily paused over a rectangle with the words ‘Compose Mail’, “ – and you can also categorise your things to keep them organized. It’s brilliant, and the messages are sent instantly. I check my email every day, so I know if my friends have sent me anything.”

She clicked on the aforementioned button to write an email, and began to explain once again. “The top box here is for you to write the email of the person you’ll be sending this to, but that person needs to have an account as well for this to work. You can put a subject for the email so the person knows what the email’s about before opening it. Then you can write the message below. You can also attach photos, videos, audio files, music…” then she saw the look on Ron’s face and said hastily, “…but we’ll be doing that much, much later. For now, you can experiment by sending an email to – um, Harry.”

“Harry has an email account?” asked Ron, surprised.

“Of course he does,” said Hermione. “Most people in the Ministry do, especially the Aurors. It’s less conspicuous than sending things by owl, after all.” She typed Harry’s email address at the top and clicked the message box. A short black line flashed where she had just clicked. “What’s that?” said Ron. “Oh, that’s just to show where you’re up to in the message,” said Hermione. Ron experimented by typing a few letters. Sure enough, the little black line moved to the right as he did so. Satisfied, he began to type.

_Dear Harry,_

_Hey, it’s Ron. Hermione made this Gmail account for me just now – I’m not sure if you know this already, but she’s been teaching me about all things Muggle recently. I learnt how to type just a few days ago, and it’s very slow since I keep making mistakes, but she says I’ll get better the more I do it. At least she’s not making me type out entire books for practice. She says she used to do that when she was younger, partly because it was good training for her fingers, and also because it was an effective way for her to remember things. Mental, that girl._

_I’ll be seeing you Sunday as usual at the Burrow. Haven’t got much to say otherwise. Send my love to Ginny. Does she have an email too?_

_Ron_

“Do you have a piece of string?” asked Ron suddenly, as soon as he was done typing. Hermione gave him a strange look, but opened a drawer and took out a piece of string. After she had handed it to him, Ron immediately began to whistle. Ariel, their owl, flew into the room and landed on the table. Ron proceeded to tie Hermione’s laptop to the owl’s leg.

“No, Ron, _stop!_ ”


	21. Computer - Part 5/7 - Video

“They’re wizard pictures, Hermione!”

“No they aren’t, they’re just videos.”

The two of them were currently on a site called YouTube. After laughing at the name for several minutes, as it made completely no sense to him at all, Ron settled down for Hermione’s explanation. “YouTube’s a site for people to put up videos of themselves,” said Hermione. “Video comes from the Latin word meaning ‘I see’, which is pretty self-explanatory, but I don’t need to go into that, I think. And just like Google, you can search for anything you want and it will come up, unless it happens to be a really obscure, esoteric thing no one really knows about.”

“So, for example, if I searched for something like, oh, I don’t know, music.” Hermione typed ‘the Beatles’ into the search bar and pressed ‘enter’. Clicking on the first link on the page, they were immediately transported to a large screen of four men with loud voices and bad hair. They were singing and dancing on a stage as they played their music in front of a very large cheering crowd.

“Merlin, they’re _awful_ ,” Ron said loudly, covering his ears. Hermione gave him a very offended look. “They were my parents’ favourite band in their day,” she said with a somewhat defiant air. Ron took this as a good moment to shut up and watch the video.

“You can pause it here, see?” Hermione moved the cursor over the moving picture and a little bar suddenly appeared. She clicked a button which looked like two solid lines very close together, and in an instant, the music halted. Ron stared. “Did you just put a Freezing Charm on it?” he asked. Hermione shook her head and smiled. “Then – why – ” he pointed a half-shaking finger at the screen, “why aren’t they moving?”

“You can stop it just like that,” said Hermione, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “And play it again.” She clicked the same button, which had changed to look like a lopsided triangle, and the video resumed. Ron gaped at it, then at her. “Wish we could do that with Sirius’ mum’s portrait,” he said. “Click a button and – ” he made a gesture with both hands in the air to suggest complete silence. 

“How about we try taking one of ourselves?” Hermione said suddenly, brightening. She opened another window, and in an instant, Ron could see the two of them in the screen of the computer. He raised his left hand. Computer-Ron mirrored him. He made a face. Computer-Ron made a face back.

“I’ll start recording,” said Hermione, and pressed a button on the screen that looked like a round circle in red. There was a faint _ding._ “Hello,” said Hermione. “It’s – ” she looked up at the calendar, “ – the 26th of August, and Ron’s making his very first video.”

“You make it sound like I’m a whiney three-year-old,” grumbled Ron. Hermione ignored him. “What are you doing, anyway?"

“Shush,” said Hermione, putting a finger to her lips. “We’re being caught on camera!”

_“What?”_

“Never mind,” she answered, and clicked the button again. There was another _ding,_ and the video automatically played back.

“Hello,” said the Hermione on-screen. “It’s – ” pause – “the 26th of August – ” 

“These are just like wizard pictures with sound!” said Ron. _“Wicked!”_


	22. Computer - Part 6/7 - Pacman

Hermione took him to yet another site. After clicking around for a bit, they reached one Ron found very interesting. This one looked like a maze covered in dots. Four ghost-shaped blips with eyes wandered about the maze, while a small yellow circle with something that looked like a mouth tried to get away from them. After a few seconds, Ron realised that the yellow circle was being controlled by Hermione, who was pressing frantically at the arrow keys. “I haven’t played in so long,” she muttered to herself. “Concentrate… I have to concentrate…” 

The yellow circle came upon a larger dot, which Ron assumed was an extra-large piece of computer food, and once it had ‘eaten’ it, the ghosts turned blue and meandered aimlessly about in the maze. Hermione quickly made the yellow circle race towards them, whereupon they were consumed one after the other. Hermione ate the rest of the pellets and something that looked strangely like a cherry, which somehow gained her a hundred points. In a few minutes, the game was over. She had won.

“What was that?” asked Ron curiously.

“It’s a game called Pacman,” explained Hermione. “The goal of the game is to eat all the pellets and destroy the ghost enemies, if you can. The cherry gets you extra points.”

So they were ghosts, and the little blip was a cherry. “Why is it worth a hundred points?”

“Beats me,” answered Hermione. “Ask the Japanese, they invented this game.”

“Is that the only thing you can play on a computer?”

“Heck, no,” said Hermione, smiling. “I would show you the other five billion games they have on here, but then I wouldn’t want you sitting in front of it all day and ruining your eyesight.” She turned the laptop towards him before Ron could ask any more questions. “Here, you try. It’s easy, just use the arrow keys." 

Ron placed his tongue between his teeth in concentration and pressed play. As soon as the game started, he made a beeline for the power pellet. The ghosts turned blue as he had expected. However, he had a little trouble controlling Pacman, who wandered about for a few precious seconds before making its way towards the ghosts.

Unfortunately, the ghosts turned back again before Pacman had reached them, and they turned around to eat Pacman. Ron gave an involuntary shout as Pacman dwindled to a single circular dot, until it regenerated. “No, I’ve lost!” he exclaimed.

“No, you haven’t yet, you still have two lives,” said Hermione. Before Ron could even ask what a ‘life’ was, the screen was showing the word ‘READY’ in large capitals. “Go, go, go!” said Hermione frantically.

He played better after that. The cherry was found and eaten quite quickly, but then one of the ghost blips cornered him and ate him, causing him to lose yet another ‘life’. “Eat the other pellet!” said Hermione as Ron proceeded to his last life. He ate it, ingested the remaining enemy and won the game.


	23. Computer - Part 7/7 - eBay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid for this idea.

A few hours ago, Hermione had left the house to do some much-needed clothes shopping. Ron was home alone, and he was also bored out of his mind. He amused himself for the first hour with a piece of string that had come loose on his old T-shirt, but the novelty soon wore off and he was left with nothing to do. 

An idea came to him, and he walked upstairs, reaching the study room where Hermione’s computer sat. He opened it slowly, careful not to scratch it. He knew how to operate it from hours of watching Hermione, and in a few minutes he had managed to open up an Internet window. Staring at the screen, he noticed a toolbar just below the address. A small button intrigued him – a small blue icon with the word ‘eBay’ beside it. He clicked and was transported to a new website.

His mouth fell open. The screen was filled with countless items with their prices underneath, page after page after page. He found the search bar and typed ‘clothes’, and the site loaded quickly, showing a vast array of beautifully designed merchandise. He clicked on each one and marveled at the sight, loving how he could cursor over the pictures and zoom to see them up close.

 _I could get something for Hermione,_ he thought suddenly, remembering her birthday was due in two weeks. _But what?_

 _A necklace._ Hermione didn’t have much jewellery apart from the ones her mother left her, and Ron knew from the book he had read on how to charm witches that girls liked shiny, expensive things. With a bit of luck, he would be able to find a piece of jewellery that wasn’t too expensive. He searched ‘necklace’ and was presented with a variety of them in different colours, shapes and sizes. One in particular caught his eye – a red pendant on a sparkling gold chain, which glittered even in the still photo. It was very Gryffindor-esque on the whole; the perfect gift for Hermione. It wasn’t very expensive either; Ron suspected the gem was fake, but he didn’t think Hermione would mind.

 

He clicked a button which read “Add to Cart”. Nothing happened. He clicked it again and again. After several tries he was ready to give up, until he noticed a checkout button in the corner of the page. He clicked on it. He expected payment of some sort, but there was none. Just then, he heard the click in the lock that meant Hermione was coming home. He closed the window quickly and walked downstairs, doing his best to pretend that nothing had happened.

* * *

A week later, a postman arrived on the doorstep with a package. Luckily, Ron was there to receive it. The box was much larger than he had expected, and was very heavy as well. Perhaps Hermione had already bought some things before him, he reasoned. 

He opened the box and its contents spilled out. His eyes widened. On the table was not one, not two, but sixteen necklaces. He paled slightly. There was a receipt tucked in the side, and it appeared to be very, very long. He picked it up, inwardly bracing himself. He saw the price, and his hands began to shake. So that was why the button hadn’t appeared to work – he had clicked it sixteen times. And the reason why he hadn’t needed to pay was because Hermione had done it so many times, the computer had automatically registered the payment under _her_ credit card. Ron was screwed.

“So it finally came, did it?” said a voice. Ron turned. Hermione stood at the bottom of the staircase, one hand on her hip, head cocked slightly. Ron made a futile attempt to hide the necklaces on the table. Hermione smiled and approached him before he could think of a good excuse for his situation, picking up one of the necklaces and holding the pendant between her thumb and forefinger. “Nice choice,” she murmured. “We’ll just refund the rest.”

“There’s a _refund_?” said Ron weakly.


	24. Dentist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid for this idea.

“Have your folks ever told you that your teeth are kind of yellowish?” 

Ron instinctively put a hand to his mouth and looked at Hermione, who was peering at his teeth in interest. “No,” he said warily. “Why?”

“My parents would be able to fix that in an instant,” said Hermione conversationally. “I could make an appointment with them, if you like.”

“Um, no thanks?” Ron liked Hermione’s parents very much, but he didn’t fancy the idea of them prodding about in his mouth, even though they were professional dentists.

“Come on, Ron,” she wheedled, giving him a pleading look (which he almost fell for, but not quite). “It won’t hurt, and my parents will be extra careful with you, I promise.” Ron could tell she wasn’t going to let up unless he agreed. He gave a halfhearted nod and she beamed. “Great! I’ll call them right now, I’ll only be a minute.”

Half an hour later, they had Apparated to Hermione’s parents’ home. Ron remembered it very fondly, but the purpose of their visit this time round sickened him just a little bit. After the usual warm welcome and a cup of tea, he was taken to an upstairs room. The place looked very clean to the point where he was almost blinded by the white-washed walls. He gulped. There was a reclining chair in the centre of the room with an odd lamp fixed over it. He gingerly sat down. “Lie down, lie down,” said Dr. Granger offhandedly. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Open wide,” he instructed a minute later. Ron did so, but his eyes widened as well as he saw what curious instruments Hermione’s father were holding in his hands. A miniscule mirror on a stick prodded his teeth and gums, and a little tube was placed under his tongue and gave his mouth a strange, dry sensation. Dr. Granger made humming noises as he inspected Ron’s teeth, which unsettled him slightly. “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with your teeth,” said Dr. Granger, and Ron brightened, but then he said, “but I think your molars need a little cleaning, they’ve gone all yellow back there.”

_My what?_

“Now let’s see, where’s my brush?” Dr. Granger fumbled around for a bit, and a little stick with a circular brush on the end appeared in his hand. He turned it on, and it made an ominous buzzing noise. Ron shrank back into his seat; the machine, though small, looked extremely evil. “This won’t hurt if you sit still,” Hermione’s father admonished. Ron nodded, and watched as the buzzing brush descended into his mouth.

He shut his eyes in shock as the tooth at the back of his mouth began to vibrate a little from the force of the toothbrush. After a few seconds, he got used to the feeling, and he opened his eyes again in interest. It was altogether a rather comfortable sensation. Hermione had spent a while talking on the phone extremely loudly in front of him prior to his visit, reminding her parents of the many times they had caused pain to their patients (“Remember when that boy bit your finger? I can still remember how he _screamed_ when you pulled his tooth out!”). Ron had pretended he hadn’t heard, but the memory sent uncomfortable shivers down his spine.

In ten minutes, the back of his mouth was covered in pink toothpaste, which tasted a little sweet in an artificial kind of way. Dr. Granger instructed Ron to sit up and rinse his mouth at a sink which had appeared next to him, complete with a full cup of water. “Nice and clean,” said Dr. Granger with a cheeky grin, as Ron finished and turned to face him. “Hermione’s waiting for you downstairs.”


	25. Pencil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi (or feminist4ever) for this idea!

“But there’s no _ink_! How is that even possible?!”

“It’s graphite rubbing onto the paper, and it leaves a mark.”

“It’s _what_?”

The strangely-shaped writing utensil resembled a short, thin stick, yellow in colour with a curious pink thing on the tip of one end, and a very, very sharp black point on the other to write with.

“It’s not like one of Umbridge’s quills, is it?” said Ron warily. “If her quills use blood, what does this thing use?”

Hermione sighed. “Muggles use this _every day,_ Ron,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt them, and it won’t hurt you. This is a pencil. The black thing you see here – ” she held the pencil up to show him the pointy end, “ – is graphite, which is a soft material that rubs off when in contact with paper, or anything really. The one disadvantage is that the pencil gets blunt easily, so you have to sharpen it again.”

To demonstrate this idea, she began to scribble furiously on the page until it was covered with a black metallic layer. Ron touched the shiny surface with his forefinger and was surprised to see that it came off on his hands. “Ugh,” he said, wiping it on his pants.

“You can rub it off with the eraser, see?” said Hermione. She turned the pencil the other way round, and began to rub at the black sheen. Ron watched in wonder as it disappeared into thin air. “Look!” he said excitedly. “It’s gone!” Hermione shook her head and smiled.

“Here’s my sharpener,” she said, taking out a small machine. It was very simplistic, small enough to fit in his palm, a tiny rectangular object with a cone-shaped hole in its side. “You hold it over the bin, here,” said Hermione, kicking the wastepaper basket over to sit between her legs. “And you hold the sharper and pencil over it, then you put it in.” She did exactly as she said, and began to turn the pencil. Almost like magic, brownish shavings began to come out of a little slot in the sharper, crumbling of their own accord into pieces and disintegrating into the bin. Ron also noticed fragments of black dust floating downwards into the bin, shimmering as they reached the bottom. After a few turns, Hermione pulled the pencil back out again. The black end was sharper than before, and gleamed as it caught the light. “You try,” she said invitingly, taking his hand to hold the pencil. “Hold it just like you normally do for a quill – firmly, but not too hard. It’s just as breakable as the nib of a quill, you see.”

Ron experimented with a new sheet of paper underneath Hermione’s blackened one. The graphite rubbed off easily, and soon he was tracing random lines on the page with a stupid grin on his face. “It doesn’t run out!” he said. “It just goes on forever. This is so convenient!”

Hermione grinned. “Just wait until you see my ballpoint pen.”

“Your _what?_ ”


	26. Pen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to HPFANFREAK08 for this idea.

_Recap:_

_Hermione grinned. “Just wait until you see my ballpoint pen.”_

_“Your_ what _?”_

* * *

 

“My _pen,_ ” said Hermione in exasperation, but Ron could see that she was trying not to laugh. “It works the same way a pencil does, except it’s permanent, like a quill.”

She opened a drawer and took out several thin sticks with different designs and colours. “There are loads of different types of pens, but there are three main types,” she explained. “This one’s my dad’s.” She picked up a black one with gold finishing. “You turn the cap so the nib comes out at the bottom, and when you’re not using it, you turn it the other way. That way, the ink won’t dry up.”

Ron watched in fascination as she demonstrated. “What’s that then?” he said, pointing at a thin piece of gold metal sticking out of the side. “Oh, that’s a clip,” said Hermione. “It’s rather handy at times. You can hang it on your shirt pocket or your collar, and it won’t fall out.”

She put it down and picked up the next one. “This one’s got a cap to protect the nib.” She grabbed two ends and pulled; the cap came off to reveal a nib similar to the first. “I don’t like this one as much, because I always end up losing the cap.” She passed it to Ron so he could inspect it. Ron had a lot of fun for half a minute or so taking the cap on and off the pen, just so that he could hear the _snap_ as the two parts connected as one.

“And then there’s this one,” said Hermione. She smiled as she picked up the last one. “I personally like the clickable ones. Here…”

Ron watched as her thumb landed on a thin red line of plastic near the top of the pen. She pressed down, and as it slid downwards, so did the tip of the pen which emerged from the other end. She grinned at him and scribbled on the paper at the table they were sitting at. The ink flowed red. She repeated the process with a green strip of plastic. The original nib shrank back with a _click,_ only to be replaced with another identical one. Or at least it was identical, until she put it to paper. The ink was green.

 _“Wicked!”_ Ron exclaimed in delight.

“I liked to colour-code my notes since I was small, and these clickable pens made it so easy for me,” said Hermione. “They used to annoy my teachers a lot, though, because I clicked them so much during class as I changed colours. You can have this one,” she said, handing it to him. Ron held it as it was made of glass, turning it over in his hands. He found that not only was there red and green, but blue and black as well. He began writing his name on the page, experimenting with the colours and changing them for every letter he wrote.

 

**R** _O_ **N** _W_ **E** _A_ **S** _L_ **E** _Y_

Just for the hell of it, he drew a heart underneath, making sure to colour it in fully with red ink. Hermione smiled and took the pen from his grasp, and wrote her name below.

 

**R** _O_ **N** _W_ **E** _A_ **S** _L_ **E** _Y_

❤

 _h_ **e** _r_ **m** _i_ **o** _n_ **e** _g_ **r** _a_ **n** _g_ **e** _r_


	27. Kite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for this idea.

“It’s a windy day,” said Hermione, staring out the window. “Perfect weather." 

“For what?” Ron said. “It’s freezing out there!”

“Kite-flying, of course!” Hermione ran up to the storage room where they kept everything they didn’t use every day, and emerged with a diamond-shaped object and a spool of string. It was red in colour with yellow stripes, with a small tail covered with coloured ribbons trailing off the edge. _Gryffindor colours,_ Ron thought absentmindedly. “It only works during windy weather, so this should be helpful,” she said, gesturing to the window where the wind blew fiercely against the grass. Several petals were scattered in the wind as they detached themselves from their respective flowers. “Come on, let’s go.”

Ron put on the largest, warmest jacket he could find and followed her out. The wind was indeed cold, so strong it was pushing him backwards, but he and Hermione walked on relentlessly, braving the wind. As they reached the top of a small hill, Hermione handed the string to him. “Hold it between your hands,” she said, and Ron did so, staring down at it in curiosity. Then, holding the kite, Hermione began to run away from him.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Ron ran after her, stumbling a little as he stepped on several rolling rocks, but the wind carried his voice far off into the distance, out of Hermione’s earshot. Due to his long legs, he caught up to her easily. “Hey!” he said again, tapping her shoulder. She spun around.

“You were supposed to stay up there, Ron!” she said crossly, slapping him with the edge of the kite where it stung. “Stay here!” She ran away again and left Ron standing stationary where he was.

When she was a good distance away, she began to lift the kite high above her head, then with a last glance back, she let go. The wind faltered for a moment, and so did the kite as the two of them watched it spin around for a few seconds. Then the wind picked up again, and Hermione gave a loud whoop as it soared higher and higher into the clouds. “Use your wand!” she shouted. Ron took it out of the pocket of his jacket. “ _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ” he shouted above the roaring wind. The kite flew higher, and Hermione cheered. 

Then she ran towards him and enveloped him in the best bear hug her petite figure could muster, knocking the wind out of him and sending the two keeling into the grass. The spool of string fell out of his grasp, but Ron couldn’t be bothered to pick it up again, as Hermione lay on top of him, giggling into his chest. “We did it!” he gasped, still slightly out of breath. “Indeed we did,” agreed Hermione, looking round. “Oh no!” she said, glancing upwards. She pointed, “Look!”

The spool of string was tumbling through the air, unraveling at an alarming rate as it went, while the kite flew higher and higher until it disappeared into a passing cloud. Ron and Hermione watched as the string made its last loop around the spool and detached itself completely, leaving gravity to do its work while the kite flew skywards until it could be seen no more. “Make a wish,” whispered Hermione excitedly in his ear.

“I wish,” said Ron, after a pause, “that I’ll stay with this beautiful brown-eyed girl forever and ever.”

“And I wish,” said Hermione with a smile, “that I’ll stay with this handsome redhead for the rest of my life.”

They kissed.


	28. Fairytales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to feminist4ever and XxxRosieWeasleyforeverxxX for this idea, and Oriondruid for coming up with the Grimm/Grim pun.

It was the last weekend of September, and the weather was growing cold. Naturally, that didn’t matter much to Ron, as he liked to stay home and sleep anyway. Yawning loudly, he got up and began to peruse the books on Hermione’s bookshelves. Not actually reading them, of course; he couldn’t be bothered to do that. Instead, he flipped open anything that looked interesting and skimmed it, before putting it back on its respective shelf once more.

He found a large hardcover book with very fancy lettering, looking as if it was quite old. Perhaps it had been something Hermione’s parents had handed down to her, he thought, but what was it? He opened the book, supporting the fragile spine so the yellowed pages wouldn’t fall apart.

The contents page was extremely unfamiliar to him. It seemed to be a book of fairytales that he had never come across before, titled _Snow White, The Snow Queen, Sleeping Beauty,_ and one called _Cinderella_ that triggered something in his memory. He remembered Hermione and Harry telling him about Cinderella once… something about it being an illness…

As if she had meant to do so all along, Hermione walked purposefully into Ron’s room. She stopped short as she stared at him with a book open in his lap, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You never read my books.”

“What’s Cinderella, Hermione?” he replied, holding up the book to show her a picture of a girl dressed halfway in rags and a glittering gown.

“Not what, _who_ ,” said Hermione. “It’s a story my parents read to me when I was little. This is a collection of all the famous Muggle fairytales.”

“Were they written by Beedle the Bard too?” said Ron, instantly regretting it; the look on Hermione’s face made it evident that it was the stupidest question he could ever have come up with.

“No,” said Hermione pointedly. “Most of them were passed down from father to son – or mother to daughter,” she added as an afterthought, “but at some point the Grimm Brothers began to collect these stories and write them down – ”

“Hold on,” said Ron. “The _Grim_ Brothers?” An image began to form in his head, one of two large, shaggy dogs with black fur and glowing eyes.

Hermione looked at him for a second in a moment of confusion, before she began to laugh. “No, they just had a rather unfortunate last name. Look here, it’s spelt with two Ms.” She flipped to _The Little Mermaid._ “I’ll read you this one,” she said _._ “It was one of my favourites when I was small.”

She spent the next hour or so reading it out to him flawlessly. Now and then she would glance away from the page, but the words would continue to flow from her lips, as if she had memorized it by heart. Ron wondered if Harry knew these stories as well as Hermione did.

The story was entertaining, in the sense that mermaids were nothing like what Muggles imagined. The book must have been very expensive, for it was colourfully illustrated on every page. The mermaid in the picture had red hair and blue eyes, looking decidedly humanoid except for her fishy tail. Ron knew from the Triwizard Tournament that they looked nothing quite as pretty as that.

When she had finished, Ron was ready for more. They spent the rest of the day reading the ones that Ron seemed to be interested in. He laughed out loud at _Sleeping Beauty_ (“Someone could have just cast _Rennervate_ on her to wake her up, the idiots!”), was dubious about the story of _Beauty and the Beast_ (“Was he an Animagus?”), and was mildly subdued when Hermione told him that Cinderella was not, in fact, an illness.

“I’m never reading this rubbish to our children,” he told Hermione afterwards, later at night. “They don’t even make sense – I’m going to read them some _real_ fairytales!”

Hermione gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher. “Children?” she said in a small voice.

Ron blushed.


	29. Compass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for this idea.

It was a small, curious-looking object. Ron thought at first that it was a watch of some sort, but instead of numbers on the surface and hands to show the time, there were only minute letters and a needle that was red on one end and blue on the other. Besides, it had no strap to wrap around his wrist; it was just a small, flat round thing sitting in his hand. No matter which way he turned it, the red end would only point one way, towards his heart. Perhaps it was a guide of some sort, like the Deluminator… he stood up from his chair and turned in a half-circle to see if the needle would follow him, but it didn’t; it was now pointing away.

He tried again. If this thing didn’t point towards people, perhaps it would lead him to something… he walked forward, but had to stop when he reached the living-room sofa. He looked around and found nothing of interest. Same old pictures on the walls, same wedding photo over the mantelpiece. He took a moment to admire how beautiful Hermione looked in the photo, with his grinning face next to hers. He thought that he looked rather surprised, somewhat. But then that wasn’t saying much, since he was, to this day, surprised that he had married the girl of his dreams. But back to the thing in his hand. “How does this work?”

“Have you never heard of a Four-Point Spell?” said Hermione, who had been watching him the whole time from the dinner table.

Ron wrinkled his nose in confusion. “Yes, but I thought you were showing me Muggle things.”

“No, you miss the point,” she replied. “This is a compass. It shows which way is North, and the red needle always points in that direction. You just turn it, see, so the big N is aligned with the needle.” She took the compass from him and held it flat in her hand, turning it with the other so the N and the needle were perfectly in line.

“How?”

“Weren’t you watching me, Ron?”

“No, I meant how does it know which way to point?”

Hermione looked at him strangely. “The world’s a magnet, Ron. Surely you must have learned that in primary school."

“But I never _went_ to primary school,” he replied, mirroring her gaze. “Mum taught us all at home, because we couldn’t aff – ” He stopped and tried again. “You know what I mean. And since we were such a big family anyway, it had the same effect.” He paused. “And what’s a magnet?”

“Good heavens, Ron. What did you learn?” She was interested now, and had put down the compass to listen to him talk about his education before going to Hogwarts.

“Whatever Mum thought was useful, but certainly not that the world was a magnet, whatever that is.”

“A magnet,” explained Hermione, “is a piece of iron that has its atoms aligned in a certain way, such that it can attract other iron-containing metallic objects following a magnetic field.”

Ron looked utterly lost. 

Hermione gave a loud sigh. “ _Never mind_. My point is, the compass works exactly like the Four-Point Spell, except that it also shows you where east, south and west are, while the spell only shows you North when you point your wand. The diagram on the compass is called a compass rose – I assume it’s because it looks like one.”

“Then what do these mean?” said Ron, pointing at the even tinier letters in between the big N, E, S and W.

“Those are just the middle points. I suppose the wizarding world doesn’t use them as much.” She shrugged. “This is actually a really old instrument; Muggles don’t use them as much nowadays, because it can be built in on our mobile phones!”


	30. Jump Rope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for this idea.

There was nothing remarkable about it. Ron could only stare at the long piece of rope he held in his hands. He pulled it until it went rigid. Nothing. He turned it over, twisting it until the rope itself curled into a bundle. It remained still. He had expected it to show an amazing trick of some sort, but it didn’t happen. The longer he looked, the more frustrated he got. “Okay, I give up,” he said finally. “What’s going on?” 

“It’s a Muggle game,” said Hermione with a smile, “called jump rope.”

“But the rope doesn’t jump!”

“Exactly. But you do.” Ron raised a wary eyebrow at her, and she laughed. “Look, just give me that.” Ron passed the rope to her, and she took one end in each hand. “You step over the rope so it’s behind you, and then you flick it upwards like this.” She flicked both her wrists simultaneously, and the rope passed gracefully over her head, landing just in front of her feet with a _crack._

“What then?”

“Well, the idea is to do this as many times as possible, except that every time the rope comes near the ground, you jump over it so you can keep going.” She stepped over the rope again and flicked it over her head. She jumped, and the rope came clean under her feet. She did about twenty jumps or so before the rope caught between her legs, but managed not to fall over as she half-tripped. “Sorry, haven’t done this in a while.”

“That looks like fun!” said Ron in amusement. “I didn’t know something as simple as that could become a game.”

“You can try different kinds of jumps too,” said Hermione, and proceeded to demonstrate. Ron watched with interest as she jumped with one foot, then the other, then alternating between the two and doing a sort of skip before tripping over again. She gave a little squeak as she fell, but thankfully Ron was there to catch her.

“Here, you try,” she said, a little breathlessly, while he helped her regain her balance on her two feet. She handed the rope to him, but Ron didn’t seem quite as confident as she had expected.

He hesitated. “Um… can two people jump at the same time?”

“Of course! Here, you take one end, and I’ll take the other.” He did as he was told. “Now put your other hand around my waist so we know when to jump at the same time, or the rope’s going to get all tangled.” He complied, and couldn’t help smiling as his hand fitted perfectly against her hip. She didn’t seem to notice, but nestled against him as she did the same. They were now standing comfortably close together, with plenty of space for the rope.

“Okay, on three,” said Hermione. “One, two…”

“OUCH!”

Ron had let go of his end of the rope to clutch the back of his head in pain; the rope had not been long enough to go over his tall frame. Hermione instantly dropped her end, her brow furrowed in worry. “Here, let me see,” she cooed, but as soon as she touched his head, he let out another yelp of agony. She gently parted his hair, and found a little bump that had gone red and swollen slightly. Thankfully there was no blood, although she would have taken Ron to a Muggle hospital if that had happened.


	31. Hula Hoop

After the jump rope incident, Ron had flatly refused to try it again for fear of more injuries. After a few days, however, Hermione persuaded him to try another game, one that was much safer, and one that she assured him would not kill any more of his precious brain cells.

The game in question was a perfectly circular hoop. If he placed it perpendicular to the ground, it came up to his waist. He held the hoop with both hands and stepped into it, eliciting a nod and a smile from Hermione. “Good,” she said. “Keep guessing.” But then he made the hoop turn in his hands so it went over his head, exactly like the jump rope. He jumped over the hoop as it came down again, using the momentum to propel the hoop around. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “I’ve got it!”

“ _No,_ ” said Hermione, laughing as she stopped him. “You can do that, but it’s not the proper way.” She stepped into the hoop and held it up to her waist. “You’re supposed to make sure it stays up, even when you let it go,” she said, and with one fluid thrust of her hands, the hoop was spinning clockwise. She began to do a twirling sort of dance, holding her arms above her head and walking about the room, making a full circle around him so he had to turn on his heels to watch her. Her hair fanned out gracefully as she turned, her smiling brown eyes watching his reaction all the while. Ron made several attempts to approach her, but the spinning hoop prevented him from getting any closer than three feet.

“Stop it,” he demanded, partly because he wanted to try, and partly because he knew she was teasing him. She stopped and the hoop promptly clattered to the floor. “Your turn,” she said.

Ron was determined not to make himself a laughing stock. He had observed that to keep the hoop spinning, he had to move his waist in a circle quite quickly. With that in mind, he stepped into the hoop and held it up. He thrust it to the right and began to move. The hoop went lower, reaching his legs, and no matter how hard he shook himself, it would not stay up.

“You’re moving the wrong way,” said Hermione. “Move your hips clockwise in the direction you spun the hoop.”

Ron complied and tried again. This time, the hoop wavered for the first few turns, but with a few vigorous thrusts it was up and spinning. “I can do it!” he said. In his excitement, he forgot to keep the momentum going, and the hoop fell to the ground again.

“Very good,” said Hermione. “If you do that for half an hour every day, you might just be able to say goodbye to all that fat on your stomach.” She poked his belly through his shirt with a finger, and he shrank back, using his hands to protect it. “It is _not fat_!” he retorted with a scowl. “It’s muscle from Quidditch playing!”

“If you say so.” She winked. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it before…”


	32. Snakes and Ladders

Hermione figured that since Ron was a good chess player, he would be interested in Muggle board games. During a visit to the attic where they kept most of the things they didn’t use every day, she found her old favourite board game under a very thick layer of dust. After a lot of cleaning and sneezing, the board was almost as good as new if not for the chipped edge in the corner, but otherwise quite playable.

She took it downstairs to show Ron, board in one hand, a plastic bag filled with counters and dice in the other. She spread the board out on the table and took the red counter for herself. “Not fair,” said Ron. “I wanted that one!” After some contemplation though, he took the blue piece.

“This game’s called Snakes and Ladders,” she explained. “You roll the dice and move the counter along the path according to what number it shows. If you reach a square with a ladder, you follow it upwards. If you reach a snake, you go down.” She thought for a moment. “There’s not much skill involved in this, really, just a lot of luck.”

Ron’s face fell; he was used to playing strategy games like wizard chess. “Okay,” he agreed.

“I’ll go first,” said Hermione, and rolled. “Three,” she announced, and moved her counter, “One-two-three. If I get a two next, I’ll be able to go up that ladder,” she said, pointing at a ladder which led her to the eleventh square. She passed the dice to Ron, and he rolled. Hermione noticed that he was rolling with his left hand, and his right was stuck firmly in his trouser pocket. She narrowed her eyes; Ron was up to something, he _never_ did anything left-handed. She watched the dice closely as it spun, but as it landed on a two, it rolled once again seemingly of its own accord. “Ron?” she said accusingly. “No magic, remember?”

The dice landed on a six, but Ron had given himself away by the blush that was forming on his cheeks. “ _Fine_ ,” he said guiltily, taking his wand out from his pocket and placing it aside. “You caught me out.”

And so the game went on. There were more ladders than snakes on the grid, as this game was for small children who didn’t like to lose. Hermione and Ron ascended towards the finish quite quickly, childishly punching the air whenever they reached a ladder and groaning when they landed on a snake, teasing each other throughout. They were in the last few squares until Hermione noticed the danger: on the second last square, there was a very long snake that slid back down to the beginning.

 _Here goes._ She shook the dice in her hand for a long time, inwardly begging for either a three or a five, anything as long as she didn’t land on the snake. Ron was watching her too; he was only a square behind her, and this was the ultimate opportunity for him to win. She exhaled and threw it onto the board.

Four. “HA!” Ron shouted in obvious glee, getting up to do a comical but obligatory victory dance. “Ha! You lose!”

“No,” said Hermione. “I only lose when you reach the end. It’s your turn.” Ron stopped and sat down again, taking the dice from the board. He rolled. Two sets of eyes watched the little cube as it spun about the board, then shuddered to a stop.

Ron swore loudly as Hermione laughed. “Looks like we’ll have to start again,” she said.


	33. Makeup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came across a story by jackofallships about Ron and Hermione, which involved makeup. That gave me this idea!

“Ron,” Hermione called from the living room, “could you get some tissues from the bathroom cupboard? The box in our living room seems to have run out.”

It wasn’t usual for Hermione to ask Ron for a trip to the bathroom cupboard, but since he had nothing to do, he traipsed up the stairs in search of it. He never had had any reason before to do so, which was why it took him so long to find it on his first try. Eventually, he found it and took a large box of tissues, ready to go back downstairs – then he noticed something behind the tissues, which piqued his interest.

Hermione rarely ever wore makeup, unless it was to special events like dinner parties and wedding banquets. Ron had always wondered where she kept her cosmetics, but had never remembered to ask. He knew his own mother didn’t have any – she preferred Glamour Charms since they easily wore off afterwards without having to make much of a fuss washing it all off. But the answer to his question was there in front of him, in a small, see-through back containing all kinds of things – lipstick, eye-shadow, a blush brush, some foundation and even a tiny tube of something he had never seen before.

He gingerly took the bag out and opened it, holding each of the objects in his hands. He took the little black tube out and opened it. It was an extremely thin black pen. _Perhaps it’s lipstick,_ he thought, disregarding the fact that he had never seen anyone wear it in black. He went to the mirror and smeared a few dabs of black on his upper lip, lining the edge with the dark paint-like colour. He frowned at his reflection; he thought he looked rather odd.

He tried to wash it off, but the black ended up smearing instead of coming off. Taking the other tube of lipstick, he attempted to cover up what he’d done by applying even more. This tube was a dark red and did a good job in covering the black, though it was very visible.

“RON!” Hermione called, her voice sounding rather far away and making him jump. He dropped the tube like it was on fire, and it made a loud clattering noise as it fell into the sink. “Coming!” he yelled, forgetting to stow the tube back in its bag. Grabbing the tissue, he pelted down the stairs and passed it to Hermione.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling up at him, but when she saw his face her expression turned to one of curiosity and a hint of worry. “Ron,” she said, wide-eyed, “you do realise you have _makeup_ on your face, do you?”

“Eh,” mumbled Ron guiltily, rubbing his face with the back of his hand; the black and red smeared all over his right cheek.

“Oh gosh, you’ve got my _eyeliner_ on your lips _,_ ” said Hermione. “It’s used to line your eyes, not your mouth! Lavender used to wear heaps of it when she was dating you, didn’t you ever notice?”

“Well,” Ron replied, “I never really looked at her properly. I fancied you, remember?”

“Oh, stop,” said Hermione, laughing, but Ron could tell she was pleased.

“But you know it’s true,” he countered, taking her in his arms. He made to kiss her, but he was pushed away by her lithe but strong hand. “No,” admonished Hermione, smiling sweetly, “not until _after_ you’ve cleaned that gunk off your face.”


	34. Lift/Elevator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to slightlyevilpixi for contributing this idea! This chapter has two names, as I’m trying to make it more international. About five people have asked me whether ‘cotton candy’ and ‘candy floss’ were the same thing, and the answer is yes, it’s just that people in Britain and America call them different things. I come from Hong Kong, so we go by the British system here, but I’m aware that most of the people who read my stories are American.  
> Also, I’ve received a few responses from the last chapter asking why Ron was so feminine, so I felt I had to clarify this: Ron is not a cross-dresser or secretly gay, or anything along those lines, he was just curious about makeup given the fact that his mother never uses it. It won’t happen again, that was a one-time effeminate adventure, so to speak.

October had arrived with its chilly winds and multi-coloured autumn leaves, which was the perfect time for Hermione to announce that she and Ron were to go shopping for winter clothes. Ron didn’t like shopping very much, and was used to wearing Molly’s sweaters to keep warm in the colder months, but Hermione was adamant.

“I can show you the lifts if you like,” she cajoled. “You didn’t like them last time, but that was only because you said you didn’t trust electricity. That’s changed now, hasn’t it?” Since Ron had no reply to that, she ordered him to put on a warmer jacket and get out of the house.

They Apparated into an alley, where they wouldn’t be seen, turning the corner to find a large shopping centre. Ron had become accustomed to seeing these on trips with Hermione to Muggle London, but had never really joined her when she went on a shopping binge. They took the escalators to Hermione’s favourite store, and spent an hour or two looking around at clothes and things they could use at home. In what seemed to be half an hour for Hermione and several Ice Ages for Ron, the two of them were carrying large shopping bags in both hands.

“I don’t want to walk to the escalators,” Ron complained. “These bags are too bloody heavy.”

“Oh, stop,” said Hermione. “We’re taking the lift, remember?”

They made their staggering path to the lift, where only a few people were waiting, as it was still very early in the morning. As the lift doors opened, Hermione made to enter, but Ron pulled her back. “Wait,” he demanded. “I want to see how they work first.” Hermione gave him a if-that’s-what-you-want-then-fine look over her shoulder and stayed back.

A very old Muggle woman stepped into the lift, hobbling about on a knobbly stick. Ron almost felt sorry for her until he recognized her – she was the old lady who had called him a teenager at the carnival. She didn’t seem to notice he was there. The lift doors closed with a snap, and the woman was out of sight. After a minute or so, the lights above the doors came on with a _ding,_ and the doors opened again. She was gone!

Ron’s eyes were popping out of his sockets from shock. “We can’t go in there!” he said in panic, grabbing Hermione’s hand as she stared at him in confusion. “We’ll disappear just like that woman did!”

“You’ll be _fine_ ,” said Hermione, shrugging him off. “Just follow me, I promise you we won’t spontaneously combust.” Ron tried to act normal as the people around them stared. He decided he didn’t want to know what the man nearby was mumbling to his friend behind them.

They stepped into the lift and Hermione pressed a button that had a letter G. “It means ground floor,” she whispered to him, very much conscious of the fact that other people were still watching the two of them warily. “The numbers represent the other floors. We’re going down.”

And down they did go, for the lift gave a sudden lurch and they were plummeting downwards. It wasn’t very fast, but to Ron it was frightening to be locked up in a glass box where he could see the people like ants below him coming closer and closer. It wasn’t anything like the Ministry where they only had to go down a little way in the fellytone box. “We’re going to crash!” he said loudly, eliciting more looks at him as Hermione squeezed his hand to keep him quiet.

Finally, the lift stopped. A cool computerised voice called out, “You have reached the ground floor,” and the doors opened. Ron stepped out with a sigh of relief, Hermione following suit. He looked up and saw…

“YOU!” said the old lady. Ron gave a loud gasp and fled.


	35. Skiing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid and Lina324 for the idea, Oriondruid especially for providing the location of Aviemore! For the Christmas season I’ve uploaded a story called _Out of The Shadows_ that I think y’all might enjoy – it’s about Angelina returning to the Weasley’s for Christmas and George trying to admit his feelings for her. Go check it out!

The wintry weather was fast approaching. The air carried a chilly, whispering wind, and just last week, snow had begun to fall. Hermione and Ron made up for it by spending many days with hot water bottles (and occasionally each other’s bodies) in bed. But they were both restless, as they knew they couldn’t stay inside forever. Hermione suggested one day that they went skiing.

“But didn’t you hate it?” asked Ron. “Remember when we were in our third year and you went to France?”

Hermione tried not to show surprise at Ron’s acute memory, but failed as she felt her eyebrows rising. “I did enjoy it, actually,” she said. “It was just that you were laughing about it so much so I had to say otherwise.”

“Well, I’m not laughing now,” he whispered, kissing her and making her giggle. “But where do we go?”

“There’s a ski resort in Scotland, near Hogwarts,” Hermione replied, responding to his kiss with fervour. “It’s called Aviemore. Perhaps we could go there for a bit, but I’ll have to find some ski jackets – I’m sure we have some in the attic.”

She came down the attic steps an hour later coughing, her hair covered in dust. She hadn’t been to clean the place in a while, but had succeeded in finding two ski jackets for Ron and herself to wear. They bustled about trying to find clothes and equipment to warm themselves up, and had soon packed a large sack of clothes to bring.

The next day dawned even colder, but Ron and Hermione were prepared as they lugged their sacks outside and Apparated to the ski resort. It took a lot longer than expected to get ready and warm enough. Hermione hired a coach to instruct them on what to do. After going through the warm-ups and necessary precautions, they went up the ski lifts to the beginner’s slope. Ron was delighted to find he didn’t have to scale the mountain to get to the top. The view was quite fascinating, with white-topped mountains stretching out into the horizon.

They stepped into their skis, Ron managing not to overbalance as he lightly grabbed Hermione’s shoulder. The slope in reality wasn’t that steep, but as it was Ron’s first time, he was very nervous. The coach tipped his head to Ron, indicating that he should encourage Hermione to go first.

“Go on,” he urged gently, stepping behind her. “Ladies first.”

Hermione bent her knees and pushed forwards, swiftly and easily making her way down the slope. She even had the skill to swerve a small child at the bottom of the hill. She waved at Ron from the bottom. “Come on!” she yelled. “Just push yourself forward. It’s not that steep.”

Ron propelled himself to the edge of the slope and gingerly copied Hermione’s actions. “Easy does it,” the coach began. “Jus’ a li’l more now – ”

 

_WHOOSH._


	36. Pancakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Raindrops on windows for suggesting the cooking idea, though the subject was so broad I decided to shorten it to just making pancakes, since I’m not old enough to be a good cook just yet :) Also thanks to Oriondruid for providing all the wonderful research about Pancake Day!

Ron woke up sometime in the afternoon on a cool March day. By this time, the sun was hung high in the blue he could see out of his window. After feigning sleep for several minutes, he began to wonder why Hermione hadn’t woken him up yet. “’Mione?” he mumbled, rolling over. His reaching arm fell on a Hermione-less pillow.

He sat up in surprise, blinking as he looked around blearily. Only now did he sense a faint aroma coming from the kitchen, and his sensitive nose, forever attuned to the smell of food, could sense butter and sugar wafting from what could only be the kitchen. There was also an occasional clatter of pots and pans. He concluded that Hermione had to be downstairs. But what in the name of Merlin was she doing?

Not wanting to fully wake up just yet with his customary trip to the bathroom, he patted down his hair, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and ambled to the kitchen. There he saw Hermione wearing a checkered apron, her hair tied up in a bun. In front of her was a large pan filled with some cream-coloured liquid, a frying pan with the same liquid sizzling inside, and several broken eggshells on the table.

“What’s this?” he asked blankly.

Hermione turned to him and smiled. “It’s Pancake Day, Ron,” she said. “Watch this.” With growing fascination, Ron stood several feet away as he watched her flip the dough in the frying pan, which had mysteriously gone solid in the time it had taken for them to speak to each other. The other side was caramel brown, and Ron could smell the familiar whiff of the pancakes his own mother used to make him.

“I didn’t know that was how you made them the Muggle way,” he said.

“Oh, it’s easy,” Hermione replied nonchalantly, transferring her first pancake onto a plate. “Just take some flour, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, salt and a touch of cinnamon. I’ve already mixed it up for you. Go on, try it.”

Ron made to get a fork and knife from the drawer, but Hermione blocked his path. “No,” she said simply, handing him the spatula she used to flip the pancake. “I meant it’s your turn to make a pancake the Muggle way.”

Ron wandered over to the sizzling pan and poured some of the pancake mixture into it. He jumped as it sizzled loudly with a sinister hiss. “That’s just the oil,” Hermione explained, coming up from behind him so she could guide his hands. “After about a minute or two, just wedge this underneath and flip it over.”

Ron watched the contents of the pan for any sign of change. Indeed, after a minute, it had turned a lovely golden brown, and he followed Hermione’s instructions. It would have gone perfectly well if he hadn’t managed to cut the pancake in half by wedging it a little too hard, but Hermione reassured him that it would taste just the same. Ron put the pancake on the plate after the second half had been cooked, and they took turns making pancakes until there was a pile of fifteen thick sweet-smelling pancakes, high enough to last for a long time.

Hermione quickly took two each for herself and Ron, storing the rest in the refrigerator in the corner. “Let’s eat,” she said, carrying small bowls of sugar and lemon juice and setting them on the table. Ron made to follow her, but she stopped him once again. “Go upstairs,” she ordered, smiling, “and clean yourself up first. Your hair looks like it was dragged out of a hedge backwards!”


	37. McDonald's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to fuzzysocksandwriting for suggesting fast food restaurants!

“I don’t feel like cooking this morning,” yawned Hermione, snuggling under the covers. “Where do you want to go for lunch?”

There was a muffled “hmm?” before Ron’s face and bedhead emerged from under his blankets. “You decide,” he mumbled, before burrowing into the sheets once more.

“Chinese?”

“No, too oily.”

“Indian?”

“Ugh, _please_ no. I don’t want a repeat of the curry disaster.”

“Italian, then?”

“Er… no.”

Hermione bit her lip and sat in silence for a few minutes, mulling over her options, when an idea suddenly came to her. “I know! Let’s go to McDonald’s!” She threw off her blankets and dragged Ron into a sitting position. “You’ve never been to a fast food restaurant, have you now?” She rushed into the bathroom to get ready for the day before Ron could even answer. With a groan, he got up and followed.

In about half an hour both of them were dressed and ready to go out. They quickly Apparated to the shopping centre where Ron had had his first lift experience. Once he had been convinced by Hermione that it worked exactly like the telephone box at the Ministry, they went to the third floor. The doors opened to a large red sign with a big yellow logo that resembled two humps – Ron realised it was an M. There was also a statue by the door of a man with pale white skin, ketchup-red hair and yellow overalls, who looked _extremely_ creepy. “Come on,” Hermione beckoned, and opened the double doors.

As soon as they stepped in, Ron was almost knocked over backwards by a wave of new, unfamiliar smells. The entire restaurant was covered with tables and chairs, and behind the counter stood several people wearing smart caps with the same yellow M embellished on them, animatedly taking their customers’ orders and shouting to the people behind them in the kitchens. His ears picked up a plethora of words he had never heard before, which he assumed were names of the food on the menu. He noticed that a lot of the words he heard seemed to begin with the prefix ‘Mc’.

“Next customer, please!” a petite girl at one of the counters called. Hermione quickly rushed over with Ron following close behind. “Um, I’ll have one double cheeseburger and one Big Mac meal, six McNuggets, one coke, and one cup of tea,” she rattled off quickly.

“What size do you want your chips?”

Hermione smiled at Ron. “Large, please.”

Their food arrived on a tray within a mere two minutes. Ron marveled at the speed at which it had been cooked. “It’s called _fast_ foodfor a reason, Ron,” said Hermione, rolling her eyes. “Here’s your burger,” she said, shoving a paper-wrapped object towards him on the tray before picking up her own. He picked it up and stared at it. “Well go on, unwrap it,” admonished Hermione. Ron blinked in surprise and proceeded to do so.

What he found was a large round sandwich-like thing, which smelt of lettuce, tomatoes and a great deal of mayonnaise. Copying Hermione he bit straight into it and experienced what one would commonly call a culinary orgasm. He closed his eyes in bliss as the flavour washed over his taste buds, and when he opened his eyes again he caught Hermione smiling in delight. “You like?” she teased. “Try the chips and the chicken nuggets, too. I promise you they’ll be just as tasty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you haven’t figured it out, the man with red hair and white skin is NOT a distant Weasley cousin, but Ronald McDonald. I’m sorry, but whenever I see his statue outside McDonald’s it gives me the creeps.


	38. Slinky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for the idea!

There was a clatter as the object Hermione had just given Ron fell to the floor. It wriggled around for a moment, seemingly with a mind of its own, rolling over and over before stopping at the edge of the stairs. Ron chased after it and picked it up, but only managed to hold on to one end of the spring, so when he ran backwards it stretched to the limit and recoiled with a _snap_ as the other end caught up with the first.

"This is so cool!" Ron exclaimed, playing with it enthusiastically. He caught both ends between his hands and spread them apart, moving his arms alternately up and down so the entire structure wriggled like a snake. He laughed out loud, but then the edge of the spring smacked him in the face and he stopped.

"This, Ron, is a perfect example of waves," said Hermione, slipping effortlessly into lecture mode. "The waves you're seeing are compressional waves, which -"

Ron ignored Hermione, and was now waving the Slinky above and around his head like a lasso. “I don’t care,” he said loudly, cutting her off. “What’s it called, Hermione?”

Hermione gave a resigned sigh. “A Slinky,” she replied, “and that’s not the only thing it can do; look, I’ll show you.” She took the Slinky from him, compressing it together in her hands so it wouldn’t bounce around, and rushed to the stairs. Climbing them two at a time, she was quickly followed by Ron who was eager to see what other tricks the Slinky toy could perform. Hermione knelt down and positioned the Slinky on one side, so it resembled an upright cylinder or a biscuit tin. Looking up at her husband and grinning, she poked it gently on the side with her finger.

The spring unfurled, tipped and bent over where Hermione had poked it, tumbling onto the step below. The Slinky resembled something like a bridge to Ron for a fraction of a second, before the other end flipped over and copied the first. The Slinky made its way down the stairs somersaulting over and over again, emitting rattle-like sounds as it went. As it reached the bottom of the steps one side flipped a final time before realizing that there were no more steps to descend upon. Unbalanced but undeterred, the entire structure fell over and rolled on its side before hitting the wall and coming to an abrupt halt.

Ron and Hermione watched the Slinky complete its journey, Ron with wonder, Hermione with a bemused delight. “That thing,” said Ron, “must have a mind of its own. It can’t just have moved down the steps like that, it’s madness.”

“Seeing is believing, Ron,” said Hermione with a smile, gesturing towards the now forlorn-looking Slinky as it rolled from side to side. “There was no magic involved.”

Ron stood with his mouth agape. “That,” he said, “is wicked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was UniquelyMi who had written the bit about Hermione slipping into lecture mode and being interrupted, so I wrote the rest of the chapter with that as a sort of prompt.


	39. Kaleidoscope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for this idea.

“This looks like one of those telescopes we used in Astronomy class,” Ron remarked, staring at the small tube Hermione had just handed to him.

She raised her eyebrows. “Look inside and you’ll see just how wrong you are about that.” He obliged and lifted it to his eye, pausing for a moment as he heard distinct rattling coming from one end of the tube. It sounded like many tiny stones hitting against each other. As soon as he looked through the eyehole, he gave a small gasp.

“ _Wow!_ ” he exclaimed. “What is this?”

“It’s a kaleidoscope,” Hermione explained. “The other end of the tube is made up of mirrors positioned in such a way that their reflections bounce off each other an infinite number of times. Try this.” She reached out to the kaleidoscope which Ron was currently staring through goggle-eyed, and turned it. The gasp that immediately escaped his lips gave her a jolt of satisfaction and a smile on her face; he had clearly seen the change in the multicoloured patterns found in the little kaleidoscope that had brought her so much joy as a child.

“They’re like tons of rainbows reflecting off each other, all at the same time,” he said in wonder. His voice came out in a whisper, so great was his fascination with the object that he was speaking quietly, as if he would disturb the beauty of what he was seeing if he spoke any louder. His eye was so close to the tube it was almost glued to it.

“If you look at the other side,” she said, “you’ll see that there’s a little container inside the other end of the tube filled with multicoloured beads.” She then realised that Ron hadn’t heard her from the way he had gone all glassy-eyed staring into the tube. “ _Ron,_ ” she admonished, “look on the other side.”

He obliged and turned the tube around to see. “It looks rather mundane from this angle,” he said, staring in confusion. “How did it go from this – ” he turned it around again and looked inside, “ – to _this?_ ”

“I told you, _mirrors,_ ” said Hermione. “They’re all strategically placed inside this thing. So if you were to break it apart, you’d see a whole bunch of tiny mirrors reflecting light off each other so colours bounce into your eyes and make patterns. It’s all physics, really, but that will be for another time."

Ron was back to staring into the tube again. “It’s probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he remarked. Then he looked away and up at her. “Except for you, of course.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Hermione quickly, but she was blushing.

“Oh, but I do,” said Ron, pulling her in for a kiss. “I know you know it’s true.”


	40. Silly Putty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for the idea!  
> Also, MY FANFICTION IS BEING TRANSLATED INTO SPANISH! Another Girl, who is proficient in Spanish and English, is doing the translations. Please check them out on my FFN profile.

“Hey, look what I found!” Hermione shouted from across the aisle to Ron, much to the amusement of the other shoppers in the queue. Ron looked up from his Muggle supermarket shopping cart. She was holding a plastic egg-shaped container in a packet that read ‘Silly Putty’. “Let’s buy this thing!”

“What is it?”

“Oh, you’ll see when we get home,” said Hermione, grinning. “I’m getting this one.” Nonplussed, Ron agreed to let Hermione place the foreign object into the shopping cart so they could go to the cashier.

Half an hour later they were back home, and before Ron had even put down the shopping bags Hermione was already rummaging through them for the mysterious egg. “Got it!” She quickly opened the packet and cracked the egg open. Inside lay a lump of malleable plastic, looking altogether quite unremarkable.

“They have these in America, but I didn’t know they started selling them here too,” exclaimed Hermione in delight, rolling the dough into a ball. “Watch this!” She threw the plastic onto the floor. Ron expected it to stick, but instead it bounced upwards again, at least four-fifths of the height from which it had been dropped. His mouth fell open.

“That’s bloody fantastic!” he said in surprise. “So it’s a moldable bouncing ball.”

“Oh, it can be many things,” said Hermione. “You see, it’s simultaneously a solid and a liquid – if you leave it long enough it’ll melt into a puddle, but you can also cool it into a solid cube which we can use as a dice.” She picked up the ball and stretched it in her hands. It elongated into a rope before breaking into two pieces. “You can mold it into any shape you like, but it’ll melt before too long.” She pondered for a moment, thinking of what else the almost magical object could do. “Say, do you have a hammer?”

“Yes,” said Ron. “It’s in the shed. Would you like me to fetch it?”

“Please,” she agreed. Ron rushed outside and came back quickly with a hammer. “They say that if you hit it hard enough it’ll shatter. Well, I read it on the Internet, and I wanted to try it out. Here, pass me the hammer.” She placed the ball on the floor and aimed. Bringing the hammer down with force, the ball shattered into several pieces, almost like glass.

Ron laughed out loud in delight. “How does that even _work_?”

“It’s a plastic polymer, so it has some really fascinating chemical properties,” explained Hermione. “Of course, I don’t want to bore you… but this special brand has another very useful function. Could you use your Deluminator for a bit, Ron?”

Ron, who always had his Deluminator in his breast pocket, took it out and clicked the top. All the lights went out, but the Silly Putty was emitting an eerie glow. Luminous and bright, it cast shadows on both their faces, despite its size.

“Wow,” he whispered. “That is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a _long_ time."

Hermione couldn’t stop herself from smiling.


	41. M&Ms and Skittles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to UniquelyMi for providing unusual and fun ideas for my drabbles! You guys have sent in some amazing requests and I will do my best to comply, but for those who sent them in a little later may not make the cut, so I apologise in advance, as I only plan to write 50 chapters maximum.

Hermione had just returned from a quick trip to the supermarket, but among all the groceries she had bought were two plastic packets of what looked like sweets to Ron. Both had different labels on them, one with ‘M&Ms’ and the other ‘Skittles’. “I think you’ll like these,” said Hermione, opening the first packet and handing Ron a small, roundish yellow one.

Ron almost went cross-eyed staring at it. The sweet was tiny, with a biconvex shape, but he could just make out a tiny white S on both sides of the thing. “What flavour is it?” he asked.

“Um, lemon, I think, but it isn’t as sour as you think,” Hermione remarked. “They are for children, after all. Go on, try it.”

Ron did as he was told and indeed, the lemon sweet was not very sour at all. In fact it had a very tangy sort of sweetness, unlike anything he’d tasted before. “It’s got an unusual taste, but not bad. How did they flavour these sweets?”

“It’s artificial flavouring, actually.” Hermione turned the packet and it emitted a crackling sound as the plastic folded in her fingers. She beckoned him to come closer. “See here, if you look at the side labels which list the ingredients, you’ll see a whole bunch of numbers with the letter E before them. Each ‘E number’, as people call it, indicates a flavouring.”

“Mmm,” commented Ron, trying to hide that he was not interested in the ingredients of the packet at all. “Could I have a red one?” Hermione gave him one and he popped it into his mouth. This time the sweet was cherry-flavoured, or perhaps strawberry, he couldn’t tell. The taste was definitely very fake, but it tasted nice all the same.

“Now try these,” she said, opening the second packet labeled ‘M&Ms’. Ron ate a blue one and immediately coughed it back out into his hands.

"These aren't Skittles!" he complained

"No, of course they aren’t; didn’t you see the label? Don't like them?"

Ron had to admit that it hadn't been bad, but the reason for his initial reaction was mainly because the new flavour had taken him by surprise. He tried another one. Now that he had gotten over the fact that they were very different from the Skittles, he could appreciate the taste better. "It's chocolate!" he remarked.

“Very good,” said Hermione with approval. “These all taste the same though, unlike the Skittles, but as you know, I’ve always been partial to chocolate.”

They spent a while at the table trying out different flavours of Skittles and shoving multiple M&M’s into their mouths, talking and laughing all the while. By the time the packets were empty, Ron was about to ask if they could go and buy another packet.

“No, you’re not having any more,” said Hermione, rather like a mother would reprimand a child. Ron stuck his tongue out at her, but for some reason, she laughed out loud.

“Ron,” she giggled, “look at your tongue! It’s _blue!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Spanish friend Another Girl has uploaded the first two chapters of a SPANISH translation of Candy Floss, available on FFN, the link for which you will find in the notes for the first chapter. I cannot thank her enough for helping to expand my readership!


	42. Math(s) and Calculators

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for using a calculator came from UniquelyMi, but I’ve also implemented the general topic of maths into this, which came from PotterHeadUntilTheVeryEnd.

Every now and then, Hermione had a habit of keeping track of her accounts in her ledger. She had always liked to be organized, and the systematic way she took all of last week’s receipts and recorded them in her little book was something she found rather therapeutic. Hermione had always been very good at mathematics in primary school, constantly scoring top scores in the subject more than she did for any other, the numbers coming to her with ease. Because of this, she had also enjoyed and excelled at Arithmancy during her time at Hogwarts. Though the magical subject hadn’t required much mental maths, her previous knowledge and excellent memory helped a great deal.

It was for this reason that Ron found her one cold April morning writing away in a notebook filled with numbers, her other hand punching at a curious-looking object with a lot of buttons. “What’s that?” said Ron, picking it up.

“Oh, that’s my calculator,” she replied, evidently engrossed in her calculations as she tried to figure out the numbers written on last week’s receipts. "All you have to do is punch in the numbers and it tells you the answers."

Ron's mouth was agape. “Can I try it?” he asked her.

“Sure,” said Hermione, waving a hand dismissively. “You could help me with this one. See here. What’s sixty-two multiplied by four?”

Ron spent a while figuring out where the multiplication sign was, but eventually found the little X on the right-hand side before Hermione could complain about him being too slow. He punched in the numbers and the equal sign. “Wow!” he said, as the result popped up in less than a second. It was certainly a lot quicker than he had expected, which was about a minute or so, or in other words the time that he himself would have taken to mentally calculate the answer. Dumbfounded, he could do nothing but stared at the digital numbers on the screen for a few moments.

"Yep," Hermione said, answering his stunned silence. "You can do a lot of other things as well... anyway, now, what’s the answer, Ron?”

“Two hundred and forty-eight,” he reported, reading the screen and proceeding to turn the calculator over in his hands. "This is _so_ fantastic!” he exclaimed. His expression turned wistful as he admired the device. “If only I had one of these at Hogwarts…"

“Well, you wouldn’t have much use for them there,” Hermione said, somehow managing to talk and write two entirely different things at the same time. “For one thing, they’re electronic devices, which never work at Hogwarts because of all the anti-Muggle wards they’ve put up around the school grounds. And even if they did, you wouldn’t need them anyway – we never needed to use maths to do anything magical, did we now? Well, apart from Arithmancy, a little bit, but you never even took the subject.”

“I know that, but it would still be cool,” Ron retorted.

“Hogwarts really should implement mathematics into their education curriculum,” mused Hermione, taking the calculator back and continuing with her organization. “It sharpens your mind and helps hone your skills in being careful. It’s ever so important for our education, especially in later life!”

 _Ha,_ thought Ron silently. _Nope, not happening._


	43. Printer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to white cat for suggesting this! I probably should have included this when I was writing about the computer, but this request came a bit late for that. I meant to include scanners as well, but then this would be much too long.

“This isn’t another computer, is it?” said Ron dubiously. He had assumed as much; after all, the object in front of him didn’t look like one. Hermione had recently made herself quite busy (well, busier than usual, at least) going on various shopping trips, trying to find Muggle objects that would not only educate Ron, but also help him with his Ministry work. This electronic thing, apparently, was one of those things that would give him a hand. It was a box with a large rectangular hole, in which was slotted an entire stack of parchment (or paper, as Hermione constantly reminded him was what Muggles called it), and above it another gaping mouth which he had yet to figure out what it was.

“This is what we Muggles call a printer,” said Hermione, sauntering over to her laptop which was resting beside it. “Watch this.” She opened a Word document on the screen (which Ron already knew about, under Hermione’s careful tutelage) covered in text, and pressed a button that read “Print”. Almost instantly the printer made a series of strange noises; to Ron they resembled a sort of _shuck-shuck-shuck-shuck-eeeeee._ He watched in fascination as one single sheet of paper was sucked into the machine. He continued to stare as the paper came out again, but instead of being blank white there were now words on it. With a final _shuck_ the paper was spat out, landing neatly on a platform. Ron picked the paper up to take a look, and realised that the words on the sheet were those from the document Hermione had just opened.

“Merlin, Hermione, this is brilliant!” he said in delight.

“That’s what I thought too, when my parents bought one,” said Hermione. “The first high-speed printer was invented in 1953, but an inkjet one like this arrived on the markets when I was nine.” Ron noticed that Hermione’s gaze had a faraway sort of look as she reminisced. “I didn’t get to use it much since there were only two years left of primary school, but it made writing my school essays _so_ much easier.”

“How’s this going to help with my Ministry work, though?”

Hermione raised an eyebrow. “I thought that would have been quite obvious,” she said with an air reminiscent of Professor McGonagall. “If you ever need to write a report or something, you could type it up on my laptop and print it out, instead of using those god-awful quills and parchment which you’d have to erase with a spell if you write something wrong.”

Ron thought this was such a great idea that he started grinning and looking exceedingly stupid, unable to say much more than a monosyllabic, “Oh.”


	44. Air Conditioning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to UniquelyMi for this idea.

"Who put the cooling charm on the room?" Ron said as he walked into the house. He had been out for the day while Hermione had stayed at home, waiting for a delivery she had made. Ron had no idea what it was, because Hermione insisted it would be a surprise. He couldn’t see anything remotely interesting added to the little cottage he and Hermione lived in, except for the fact that there was a remarkable, unnatural drop in temperature, as well as a strange whirring sound coming from somewhere above him. 

"Oh, that's a thing called air conditioning that I installed today,” said Hermione casually, pointing at a large, rectangular machine close to the ceiling over the sofa. “It’s approaching summertime and I thought this would be more efficient than casting charms every day to keep us cool.”

“What magic is this?” Ron exclaimed, looking up. If he stood at a certain angle he could feel the cold wind rippling through his hair. “How is it producing all that cold wind? Is there ice inside?”

“Once again, Ron, Muggles can’t do magic,” said Hermione, almost petulantly.

“I know, but how is it not hot?”

“Wind propellers and energy,” said Hermione, “to be succinct. Would you like the lecture to go with it?”

“Um, no thanks,” said Ron, backing off quickly. “What’s this?” He had just sat down in the nearest armchair and found a small rectangular thing with buttons settled in his seat. After pulling it out so he could sit comfortably, he held it up for Hermione to see.

“That’s a remote control for the air conditioning,” she explained. “You can adjust the temperature to as cold or as warm as you want, and also how fast you want the air to come out. It uses infrared light rays to communicate with the air conditioning. Look, I can turn it on and off.”

She took the remote control from him and pointed the object straight up at the air conditioner, rather like a wand, and pressed a button. The whirring stopped and Ron’s hair stopped moving from the force of the wind. After a few moments Hermione pressed the button again. The whirring began quietly but intensified until the air conditioner was going at full power once more.

Ron’s mouth fell open. “That is _genius!_ ” he exclaimed. “I’ve always wondered what kept Muggles cool on hot summer days.”

“Well, now you know,” Hermione smiled at him. “I dare say it’s better than a Cooling Charm.” Ron nodded in agreement, but a shiver suddenly came over him and he shuddered from the cold.

“Here, I’ll let you try and make it warmer.” She handed him the remote control. “And don’t shove your face right into the wind current, or you’ll get a headache.” Ron looked interestedly at the buttons. He found a pair of arrows and deduced that the one pointing up was for raising the temperature.

He pointed it at the air conditioner and pressed it. Nothing happened. He pressed again. “Is this thing even working?” he said, whacking it against his leg, hoping to shake it into action.

“Don’t _do_ that!” said Hermione quickly, “you’re holding the remote the wrong way round!"

“Oh,” said Ron blankly, looking at the remote again. “I see.”


	45. Hairdryer

“Now, this thing won’t be much use for you,” said Hermione, taking out a box and working at Sellotape on the flap, “but I think you’ll have fun with it nonetheless.” She took the thing out of the box and Ron immediately jumped back.

“Is that a _gun_?!” he asked, pointing a shaking finger at it. It was the right shape, in a letter L with the shorter side as the handle. He had read of guns in _The Daily Prophet_ a few times,such as when they reported mass Muggle shootings, and what Hermione had in her hand looked quite similar to the actual thing.

Hermione looked at the object in her hand, arched an eyebrow, then burst out laughing. “No, Ron, this is _not_ a gun,” she said, “though I can see why you would think so.” She unwound the cord that was attached to the gun-that-was-not-a-gun and plugged it into a power socket. “You know how after you wash your hair, and it’s completely soaked afterwards? Well, this is how Muggles cope without Drying Charms. Want to see?” She didn’t need to wait for Ron’s reply before pointing her wand in his face. “ _Aguamenti_ ,” said Hermione, and Ron found his hair doused in a stream of cool water. He spluttered and it stopped, but his hair was now plastered to his forehead and weighed down with water. Miraculously, the rest of his body had managed to evade the moisture attack.

Hermione flicked a switch on the hairdryer, and it made a loud whirring sound. Ron edged away but she grabbed his shoulder and kept him in place. “I won’t hurt you,” she reassured him, shouting a little over the noise, and then Ron felt her hand run through his hair, accompanied by a very hot gust of wind. But how could it be wind, when he was _indoors_?

He realised the wind was actually coming from the thing, and that it was drying his hair. He stood still, realizing that he was actually enjoying the way the current made his hair ripple and how his neck felt pleasantly warm from the heat. It took them a while, but eventually Ron’s hair was comfortably warm and dry. Hermione had also run a brush through his hair as she dried it, which made the result rather smooth.

“See, the reason why my hair’s so frizzy most of the time is because I keep using Drying Charms,” said Hermione. “They take a lot less time and are much more efficient that way, but the bad thing is that they take _all_ the water out of your hair, which I later found was bad for it because it gave them split ends. So I reverted to using a Wind Charm combined with a Warming Charm in fourth year to replicate the effect of a hairdryer, but I put a Silencing Charm on it so it wouldn’t be so loud…”


	46. Washing Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Oriondruid for this idea.

“This is tedious,” Ron grumbled, hands full with dirty laundry as he sat in a chair with two full baskets in front of him. They were at Hermione’s parents’ home, where Hermione was trying to teach him how to do laundry the Muggle way. Since she knew that the wizarding method was much more efficient, she hadn’t bothered to buy a washing machine of their own, so Hermione’s parents had consented for them to use theirs instead.

“It’s _necessary,_ Ron,” she admonished, sorting through the clothes efficiently. “If you don’t separate the colours from the whites, the dyes will mix together in the washing machine. Now, I’m quite sure you don’t want pink underwear.”

Ron winced and muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but fell silent and sorted through the clothes, stifling yawns.

It wasn’t so hard after that. They loaded the coloured clothing into the machine and Hermione fetched the washing powder. “Don’t add too much, mind,” she said, giving it to her husband. Ron, unfortunately, had a very different idea of what ‘too much’ was, and dumped a liberal amount of the white powder into the compartment. Before Hermione could so much as protest he had slammed the door shut and pressed a button that said ‘colours’, quickly followed by ‘START’.

Not saying anything, Hermione bit her lip. Hopefully, this wasn’t going to be a complete disaster…

A little more than half an hour later, the couple came back from tea and scones with Mr. and Mrs. Granger to find the washing machine overflowing with froth. “Oh dear,” said Hermione shrilly, taking out her wand. “ _Evanesco!”_ The bubbles subsided, but more began to form in their place. Finally, the machine stuttered to a halt and Hermione was able to efficiently remove the remaining bubbles coming out of it with a few more cries of the Vanishing Spell. Ron rushed over and opened the lid and fished out the sopping wet clothing, carelessly dripping water on the tiles. He wrinkled his nose, but was unable to ignore the fresh smell emanating from the laundry. He lifted the clothes to his nose and sniffed tentatively. The aroma tickling his nostrils was surprisingly pleasant.

“Quick, in the tumble-dryer,” said Hermione, brushing down her blouse and tucking her wand into her jeans pocket again. “I’ll load the whites once you’re done.”

The tumble-dryer in question had a see-through window allowing Ron to see the clothes rolling over and over inside, unlike the washing machine, which was completely opaque. He was much more interested in this, actually laughing at the way the barrel turned so the clothes were constantly falling down from the roof. It took another half-hour for the clothes to dry and Hermione taught him to smooth the creases and wrinkles out while the fabric was still warm. “I would teach you how to use an iron,” she said, smiling, “but since we’re not going to be doing this a second time I doubt I will.”

Ron was relieved when Hermione concluded that they weren’t going to do this again. _Aguamenti_ and _Scourgify_ worked well enough for their domestic needs.


	47. Vaccination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to DGMSilverAirHead03 for this idea.

“I can’t believe it!”

Hermione looked at Ron with an expression of utmost shock on her face. She and Ron were currently having a conversation about the differences between Muggle and magical medicines. They had just gotten to vaccinations when Ron voiced that he hadn’t the slightest idea what she meant by the term.

"But  _everyone_ needs to get vaccinations!" said Hermione. "You'll suffer a great deal or even die if you catch any of those dangerous diseases." Rushing to the phone, she quickly made a booking at the nearest Muggle hospital for Ron to get what she called an "injection". Ron hadn't the foggiest idea what she was nattering about to the person on the other end of the phone, but it sounded very foreboding.

He found out two days later when Hermione dragged him out of bed for an early appointment at the hospital. They had a quick breakfast before Apparating to the entrance and making their way in. “Now, all you need to do is relax,” she told him firmly, pointing a figure at his face like she did whenever she was acting authoritative. They were in the waiting room for their turn. “The needle will get in easier that way.”

 _Needles?_ No one had mentioned needles to him. Ron tensed up instantly. “What is this injunction thing again?”

“ _Injection_ ,” said Hermione crossly. “They give you a milder version of a disease so you become immune to it – ”

“I become _what?_ ”

“IMMUNE,” she replied loudly. Several Muggles turned to look at them, some with bemused expressions. “It means you don’t get the disease again so you’re safe. To do that, they stick a needle into your – ”

“WHAT!” Ron quickly got up, meaning to make his way for the door, desperately trying to do anything to escape. Hermione pulled him roughly back into his seat.

“You’re not going anywhere,” said Hermione. “It’s not even that bad, you won’t even know it happened when you’re done.”

“Mr. Weasley?” said a nurse by the door, which was now ajar. Ron’s mind went into overdrive. “Would you come in now, please?” Ron looked towards Hermione, wide-eyed, but she gave him a poke in the back urging him to move forward. He gulped very audibly before getting up and making his way to the door, unable to escape from what he viewed as an impending doom.

“Now, this will be over in just a minute, dear,” said the nurse kindly. Her back was turned to him so Ron couldn’t see what she was doing, but then she turned around holding a syringe in her hands. Having never seen a syringe before, Ron’s attention focused on the very long, thin needle that protruded from one end of the object the nurse was holding.

“Bloody hell,” he said to Hermione, clutching her arm tightly, “this was a very bad idea.”

“No pain, no gain, Ron,” she replied, patting him on the shoulder. “You only have to suffer this once and you won’t ever get sick again.” Ron wasn’t too sure whether he would prefer a fatal disease to getting a potentially agonizingly painful needle stuck in his arm.

“Perhaps talking to him will take his mind off it,” suggested the nurse.

“Great idea,” said Hermione, and turned to him. “Do you remember what you had for breakfast this morning, Ron?”

“What?” Ron arched an eyebrow at her. “Um… I had eggs, I think. On toast. With baked beans. And a mug of hot chocolate, but then I went to the kitchen cupboard to get some marshmallows to go with it.”

“Very good. What about dinner yesterday?”

“Uh, we had that lasagna that Mum sent over. I think it had tomatoes and beef in it, and a great deal of chee – ”

“Thank you,” interrupted the nurse, who was now pressing a small square of white cloth to Ron’s arm. “You may leave after I disinfect this.”

Ron didn’t understand. “Wait, but I haven’t even gotten the injection!”

“Yes, you have,” said the nurse, smiling. “The needle was in by the time you said ‘lasagna’.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” said Hermione. “You barely felt a thing. You were so relaxed talking about food, you didn’t even notice.”


	48. Treadmill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to bananagirl.97 for the idea of Ron going to the gym – sorry I couldn’t fit it all into 500 words, so I took one piece of gym equipment and added my imagination to the mix!

With all the Muggle food Hermione had been introducing to Ron over the months of her new regime to educate him about the Muggle world, it wasn’t long before the effects of it began to show. Hermione realised one day that her husband had gained a significant amount of weight.

“Ron,” she said to him at breakfast one morning, “don’t you think your stomach is getting a little flabby?”

Ron instinctively covered his stomach with one arm and sucked his stomach in, the other holding a fork he was using to hurriedly shoving food into his mouth. “Bloody hell, Hermione,” he complained with his mouth full. “Can’t you just let a man enjoy his food?”

“You do realise, Ron,” said Hermione, slipping effortlessly into her patronizing lecture mode, “that if you keep this up, give it ten or twenty years and you’ll be highly unhealthy. This will probably lead to adverse health effects and you’ll get a higher chance of heart disease and cancer. I know that Healers can cure most things, but no one’s found a cure for cancer yet, not even in the wizarding world.”

Ron rolled his eyes, but Hermione’s admonishment did create an uneasy feeling in his stomach. “What ideas do you have?” he asked.

“Well, I was thinking of buying a treadmill, actually.”

“A _what?_ ”

In the next few days, Hermione sent out an order to a gym company for a treadmill, which arrived one week later in a very large cardboard box. It consisted of a rubbery track that was attached to a computer with two handles. Hermione explained that Ron was to run three times a week on the machine, given that the grassy area outside their cottage was often slippery with mud, rain or snow. Ron didn’t understand.

“But it’s such a short strip of track,” he said. “I’ll barely be able to walk two steps on that thing!"

“Ah, but that’s the magic of it, you see,” said Hermione. To demonstrate, she stepped on the treadmill and pressed the ‘on’ button. Suddenly, the little strip of rubber was moving under her feet, and she was walking on the treadmill, but without actually going anywhere. With every step she took, Ron expected her to move forward like she normally did, but it was only the track that moved, while she stayed where she was. “The rubbery track is actually just a short strip rolled up inside,” she explained. “You can set the speed to as slow or as fast as you want by pressing this button here.”

Ron started laughing. “So even if I run for, let’s say ten miles, I’ll still be stuck in the same place, sweating and staring at the wall?”

“Yes,” said Hermione. “Very space-conserving, isn’t it?”

Ron personally found it rather pointless that Muggles would come up with designs for such things. He didn’t fancy being cooped up in the house doing sports, but what with the area they lived in devoid of any gyms or long roads designed for runners, he didn’t have much choice. “Can I try it then?” he asked.

Hermione stepped off the treadmill and turned it off. Ron got on and pressed the button just like Hermione had done, but he wasn’t prepared for the sudden jerk beneath his feet that meant the track was moving. He ended up rather unceremoniously stumbling off the track and falling on his bottom. He let out a groan of pain.

“Don’t worry,” said Hermione, who was trying not to laugh. “You’ll be up and running in no time.”


	49. Skateboard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to PotterheadUntilTheVeryEnd for this idea, and Oriondruid for suggesting that Ron ‘enhance’ the skateboard experience with magic!  
> I’m posting this chapter four days early to celebrate my survival of my first days of IGCSEs (that’s Muggle O.W.L.s to the Americans out there reading this, if you don’t know what I mean). It went very well, thank you for not asking :D The epilogue is the next chapter up – I know, don’t cry, I can’t believe this is ending either! Leave me a review, will you?

Ron had to hold on to Hermione for balance and support, lest he fall off the latest contraption she had assigned him to master. The object in question was called a skateboard, though it did not resemble the ice-skating shoes he had once used to walk on ice. Hermione later explained to him that the skates were not metal blades this time, but a set of wheels with which he could make his way across a road. Of course, that could only happen when he had actually figured out how the bloody hell this thing moved without him toppling off it first.

He eventually got onto the thing, planting his two feet slightly apart. Hermione’s pinched expression looked a little strained from the force of his hands on her thin shoulders, but she didn’t mention it.

“How do I make it move?” Ron asked, trying to let go of her shoulders and continue balancing without much success.

“You have to push off with one foot and step back on as soon as it starts moving,” Hermione replied. The look on her face made it clear than she currently thought this was a bad idea, but Ron tried it anyway. He pushed off with his right foot, but his left slipped on the edge of the skateboard, causing it to flip over and narrowly miss his head as it flew upwards. Ron jerked his head back so fast he almost got whiplash, and fell over on his backside.

“ _Ouch_ ,” he complained. Hermione looked down a touch forlornly at him. It was obvious to both of them that he wasn’t going to master this in a month, let alone one day. Ron wasn’t very good on a bicycle, which required balance, and skateboards were no different in terms of skill requirements. He thought for a bit, chewing his lip. Suddenly, he had an idea.

He retrieved the skateboard and stood on it again with Hermione’s assistance (she winced from the pressure on her shoulder), and took his wand out of his pocket. Hermione made to protest with a reinforcement of her ‘no magic when I’m trying to teach you about Muggles’ lecture, but he put his right foot on the ground again and pushed off, pointing his wand at the skateboard and saying at the same time, “ _Wingardium Leviosa!”_

The skateboard hovered a few centimetres off the ground and, combined with the momentum from its pre-takeoff, continued to move steadily through the air. Hermione’s expression was of utmost surprise, but when she saw Ron grinning at her she clapped her hands and laughed. Ron had gotten quite good at the spell (it was first-year work, after all) and was able to maneuver the skateboard so it didn’t tilt or rise too fast. In effect he thought it was a bit like standing on a very wide broomstick. He looked back at her again and shouted, “I did it!”

In his excitement, he forgot about the spell he was maintaining, and the charm broke. The skateboard succumbed to gravity and fell. Ron, who had not expected it, landed hard again.

As he rubbed his sore backside, Hermione walked up to him with a mixture of conflicting disapproval and admiration, and said, “Well, I suppose that’s _one_ way of going about it.”


	50. Epilogue

It had been several years since Hermione had begun her regime of teaching Ron about the Muggle world. Knowing that everything she did was for his own good, and being the dutiful husband he was, he had never asked her why. Now that his knowledge of Hermione’s origins had gained much more depth, he was slowly beginning to see the reasons for her actions 

As it always was, the world was changing. The wizarding view of the Muggle world was slowly evolving as the years passed, and while Muggles still remained largely ignorant that there were magical people wandering in their midst, there was an increasing percentage of them who knew about their existence. More wizards and witches were marrying Muggles, and there had been an inexplicable but significant increase in Muggle-born children over the years. The wizarding world knew that it wouldn’t be long before the two worlds would eventually be merged together, for at this rate it was clearly inevitable.

Of course, being a person who was always prepared for the future, Hermione had already foreseen this. It was because of this eventuality and the fact that she wanted to teach Ron more about her roots that she had done all this.

“I think you’d be able to live as a Muggle now, if you so wished,” she told him one day. It was true, she reflected, that Ron had picked up the Muggle lark startlingly quicker than she had expected. Perhaps one day, when they had children, they would be able to teach them this too, so that living in both worlds would come easily to them. Thinking of actually deciding to have children with Ron still gave her a sort of thrill, but given her brains and fastidiousness, she was sure this would not be a problem. After all, it could be a survival skill they would need in future when the Muggle and wizarding worlds finally intermingled.

Of course, he had yet to master the ability to drive a car, but she didn’t think they needed to rush. She spent a little time imagining the convenience of it all if he did eventually get his drivers’ license; surely car rides would be much more romantic than trips via broomstick, Floo or any other wizard’s mode of transport! She had every confidence in her husband that he could do it in the future.

It was all in good time, Hermione decided, and she and Ron had many happy years before them. None of them would ever know what the future would bring, but may it be good or bad, she had no option but to let them come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _‘All was well.’_  
>  Thank you to all those who sent in chapter requests; your responses were very much appreciated! Your ideas have been extremely inspiring and fun to write, and I hope I didn’t disappoint! I still have plenty of other stories on my profile, so if you’re looking for more material by yours truly, go and check out the other 50-odd fanfictions I’ve published! I have a great deal of Romione on there :)  
> I hope you enjoyed reading my humble works, especially those of you who have been following _Candy Floss_ from the beginning. If you’re new, don’t forget to leave a review!  
>  It’s IGCSE time for me now (or O.W.L.s to my fellow non-British friends) so I won’t be posting again until early June when my exams finish. Until then I will on exam hiatus, but if you are interested in what I will be working on come summer, go and FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER (username: bravenclawesome) for updates about me, new story ideas, and weird/hilarious feedback I receive in my inbox!  
> So long for now, my friends. It has been quite a journey, but now I must do some quality stuDYING.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on fanfiction.net under the same username, where it can still be found.


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